In addition to our other extensive public programming, for decades AIABaltimore has sponsored the only local annual lecture series devoted to architecture and design. This program brings guest speakers from around the world, as a gift to the people of central Maryland. The series has attracted hundreds of enthusiasts, sometimes standing-room-only crowds, and is open to the public.

Time: 6 p.m. with reception to follow each lecture
Location: Falvey Hall at Brown Center, Maryland Institute College of Art, 1300 W. Mount Royal Avenue

1.5 AIA/CES (HSW) credits per lecture with registration

R. Allen Eskew, FAIA
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
www.studioedr.com

As the founding director of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple Architects, New Orleans-based architectural and urban design firm, R. Allen Eskew has earned an impressive reputation for his ability to collaborate with designers, clients, and neighborhoods alike; to initiate progressive design that is not only environmentally responsive, but also creative and vibrant. With an extensive repertoire of urban planning and a passion for the rich, architectural heritage of the Gulf South, he was the likely candidate to spearhead the recovery initiatives in his home town after the destruction by Hurricane Katrina.

Eskew’s design studio utilizes the unique cultural and architectural heritage of New Orleans as an archetype for design and planning of national range and recognition. Receiving both national and local awards in acknowledgement for his leadership and dedication to the built environment, Eskew’s portfolio includes the Mississippi River Interpretive Plan, the Baton Rouge Riverfront Master Plan and DeSoto Park Concept Plan, the Estuarine Habitats Research Center, National Wetlands Research Center, Audubon Institute Aquarium of Americas, Jean Lafitte Environmental Education Center, The Shaw Center for the Arts, Acadiana Center for the Arts, the Louisiana State Museum and the Capitol Park Interpretive Plan.

Allen’s other architectural credentials include such projects as the Audubon Center for the Research of Endangered Species, New Orleans Museum of Art, South Carolina Aquarium, International Game Fish Association Fishing Hall of Fame and Museum, and the New Orleans Fair Grounds Grandstand.

Julia Gersovitz, OAQ, OAA, FRAIC
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
www.fgmaa.com

Julia Gersovitz is member of the Order of Architects of Quebec, the Ontario Association of Architects, and is a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. She began her career in architectural conservation when this specialization was still being defined. Over the years, as an architect, teacher, and member of heritage preservation organizations, she has contributed to the development of this now widely recognized branch of architecture.

As a young graduate, Ms. Gersovitz was called upon to design the integration of several heritage buildings for the new Alcon International head office in downtown Montreal. Following this landmark project, she was asked to participate as either senior consultant or as guest expert in a series of complex assignments at major sites in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Winnipeg. As always, her goal was to highlight the particular character of each site and uncover its relevance to the present.

In addition to her private practice, Ms. Gersovitz has been a member of the Heritage protection review board of the Quebec government, Montreal’s advisory board for the protection of heritage property, and an advisory body of architecture and urban design in Montreal. She has contributed to the task force on historic sites in Canada, has been a member of the Board of Directors of Heritage Montreal for many years, and she chairs the Architectural and Planning Commission of Westmount.

She is also an Auxiliary Professor of Design at McGill University where she teaches courses on historic preservation, design in historic districts, and the history of architecture in Canada. She is also a guest professor in the master’s program of historic preservation at the Univerisite de Montreal School of Architecture.

Walter J. Hood, Jr., ASLA
Thursday, April 5, 2007
www.wjhooddesign.com

Walter Hood is Professor and former Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design in Oakland, CA. Hood has worked in a variety of settings including architecture, urban design, community planning, environmental art, and research. He was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome in Landscape Architecture, 1997. He has exhibited and lectured on his professional projects and theoretical works nationally and abroad. His work was recently featured in the exhibition and publication, “Open” New Designs For Public Spaces, Van Allen Institute, NY, Metropolis Magazine, the New York Times, and Dwell Magazine. His firm designed the gardens and landscape for the New De Young Museum, San Francisco with Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron.

Walter Hood’s published monographs: Urban Diaries and Blues & Jazz Landscape Improvisations illuminate his unique approach to the design of urban landscapes. These works won an ASLA Research award in 1996. His essay “Macon Memories” is featured in Sites of Memory, Princeton Press, 2001. Hood participated in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s “Revelatory Landscapes” Exhibition 2000-2001. He is currently researching and writing a book entitled Urban Landscapes; American Landscape Typologies. His area of teaching, the American Urban Landscape, is intertwined with his design work creating a didactic approach to the design of urban landscapes.

Bernard Tschumi, AIA
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
www.tschumi.com

Bernard Tschumi is an architect and educator of both French and Swiss descent. First known as a theorist, he exhibited and published the Manhattan Transcripts and wrote Architecture and Disjunction, a series of theoretical essays. His professorial credentials include the Architectural Association in London, the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, Princeton University, and the Cooper Union. He served as Dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at the Columbia University in New York from 1988 to 2003.

In 1983, he won the prestigious competition to design the Parc de la Villette. As a result of that competition, Tschumi established his Paris office in 1983, followed by the New York office in 1988. Tschumi’s studio, now in practice for over 19 years, has completed such diverse projects as Le Fresnoy National Studio for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France; Columbia University’s Lerner Hall Student Center; Marne La Vallée School of Architecture, Paris; the Interface Flon, a bus, train, and subway station and pedestrian bridge in Lausanne, Switzerland; a 8,000-person/ 70,000 square-foot Concert Hall and Exhibition Complex in Rouen, France; and the 100,000 square-foot Florida International School of Architecture in Miami, Florida. He was one of three international finalists selected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1997 to design its new expansion. Tschumi is currently designing the Museum of African Art in New York, the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sao Paolo, which were all winning entries to international competitions, as well as buildings in Cincinnati and Geneva, Switzerland.