Architecture plays a crucial social and cultural role in the way public realm is inhabited. The projects investigate the art and possibility of inhabiting latent in-between spaces, to explore and enjoy the subtle thresholds between public and private as a continuum. Each project investigates its own themes through a reinterpretation of the programme and the site both as a physical and cultural landscape. 

Cristina Veríssimo’s research addresses the awareness of the potentialities of cork as a sustainable material and seeks possible new uses of cork materials in architecture. The use of cork is one of the most promising trends in sustainable development due to its unique natural properties, exceptionally good environmental qualities and high potential of incorporating innovative technology in architecture.

Cristina Veríssimo graduated in architecture from the Faculdade de Arquitectura at University of Lisbon (FAUL) and holds a MArch II Degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has taught architecture for over a decade and been invited as a jury member and to lecture at schools in Hong Kong, Europe, Argentina, Chile, USA and Canada. She also has an active professional practice, CVDB Arquitectos, with her partner Diogo Burnay. CVDB Arquitectos has received international awards, such as WAN Award 2013 for education, Archdaily 2014 BOTY for education building of the year,  and AR Highly Commended Award in 2015. Veríssimo develops international workshops and exhibitions on the topic cork and new uses in architecture since 2014. The work  involves researchers, universities and industry. Her ongoing research for her PhD seeks to advance further uses of cork in architecture. Since 2013 she has been teaching as an Assistant Professor of Practice at the School of Architecture at Dalhousie University, Canada.

This lecture is part of the series, Master lectures 2019-20: Portuguese Contemporary architecture. The series is a collaboration between Städelschule, Deutsches Architekturmuseum and Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.

Traveling (through space) presents a collection of projects that stress the idea of how a certain shape of space or a collection of spaces contributes to the organisation of the spatial structure of a building. From the most remote idea of a patio as a space and social organiser of a house, spaces evolve over time into more complex shapes and forms that in turn reflect the spiritual and social values of the different times. Spaces relate the inside and the outside of a building, as well as reinforce the relation with its surrounding context. Spaces are a consequence of the existence of architecture, and all their  potential lies in the fact that they provide different atmospheres according to the nature of a programme and the characteristics of a place - cultural, physical and climatic. Even in a ruin, as a presence of a once existing architecture, we recognise how space gives a sense of collection - the collection of remaining and fallen parts and elements. 

João Santa-Rita is a Lisbon-based architect. After graduating from Escola Superior de Belas-Artes in Lisbon, Santa-Rita was a founding partner of Santa-Rita Arquitectos in 1990 and Santa-Rita Associados in 2016. As teacher, lecturer and jury member, he was invited to universities like University of Minnesota, SCI-ARCH, Columbia University, University of Granada, Rhode Island School of Design and Savannah College of Art and Design, and others. In addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions, Santa-Rita has participated in the Triennale di Milano as well as the Biennale di Venezia, and his work was nominated for the Mies Van der Rohe Prize in 2012. His projects has been published in numerous international journals and magazines. Santa-Rita served as President of the Portuguese Chamber of Architects from 2014 to 2016.

This lecture is part of the series, Master lectures 2019-20: Portuguese Contemporary architecture. The series is a collaboration between Städelschule, Deutsches Architekturmuseum and Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.

The Städelschule Architecture Class proudly presents Thom Mayne for its Dean’s Honorary Lecture 2019. Thom Mayne is the founding principal of Morphosis whose research and projects in architecture and urban planning have world-wide recognition and critical acclaim. Mayne's distinguished honours include the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (2013). From 2009 till 2016, he served on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama.

Since its founding in 1972, Morphosis has grown to have offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Shanghai. Its work spans across a wide variety of scales and typologies, from civic projects, schools, and museums to commercial towers and city planning. Under Mayne’s leadership, Morphosis’ X-Tech group pursues technology and fabrication research, working with industry partners to arrive at new solutions for constructability and performance. Mayne also leads The Now Institute, a graduate studio dedicated to applying design thinking to real-world issues facing cities today.  

With Morphosis, Thom Mayne has been the recipient of 29 Progressive Architecture Awards, over 120 American Institute of Architecture Awards and numerous other design recognitions. The work of Morphosis has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and over 30 monographs. 

Among Thom Mayne’s many academic appointments is his position as Distinguished Professor at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); he is also a Founding Board Member of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Having accepted the invitation to give the thirteenth Dean’s Honorary Lecture, Thom Mayne joins a distinguished roster of previous lecturers. The annual Dean’s Honorary Lecture was introduced in 2006 in conjunction with Städelschule Architecture Class’ End-of-Year Review and sees Städelschule's dean invite an honorary guest to give a lecture on the basis of his/her merits and contribution to architecture.

Thom Mayne’s lecture is part of Städelschule Architecture Class’ End-of-Year Programme at the German Architecture Museum. The two-day programme includes the Master Thesis Review on June 26 -27 from 10:00-18:00 each day. 

Link for the lecture here

Florian Busch is an architect based in Tokyo. 

After graduating from the Architectural Association in London, he worked with Toyo Ito for five years before opening Florian Busch Architects (FBA) in 2009.

In its first ten years, the office has produced a remarkable body of work: A wide spectrum of structures and buildings — cultural centres, libraries, museums, and some of the world's most unusual houses — have led to awards and made Florian Busch a much sought after architect, both in Japan and around the world. 

At the core of the work is the understanding of architecture as an open process. Drawing on a global network of the industry’s top experts, FBA begins every project bydevising strategies of collaboration to reach beyond the imagined. 

Florian Busch has been invited as a speaker, lecturer, and guest critic at institutions world-wide.

Architectural design is influenced and restricted by several different fields like program, function, politics, client, software, construction process, climate, sustainability and last but not least budget. To transform an idea into a building is a lengthy procedure with several drawbacks and obstacles. But also the process of designing is changing through the introduction of digital tools, ways of teaching and impacts from other fields like movie, advertising, media and art. It uncovers both possibilities and vulnerability to the ownership of the design process and its outcome. 

For example parametric design based on pure algorithmic thinking without clear relationship between design intend and design response is mostly used to justify complex geometries and structures without challenging the question of the actual quality of the work. It should not replace or dis-empower the designer’s creative freedom and make the architect loose the ownership of the work (Werk). It should only act as another tool to enhance and open up the designer’s creative ingenuity. The same applies to other fields like structural engineering, MEP and construction. The architect always has to keep ahead of the design process and challenge its fellow consultants to achieve the best in aesthetics for the final project. The lecture “Design to build” will review the design process and its impact on recent work completed by the firm studioGA.

StudioGA is an award-winning architectural firm based in Munich, Germany. It has won numerous competitions in places like Düsseldorf, Bremen, Austria and Lithuania and has implemented over 20 projects. Over the past fifteen years, studioGA’s project portfolio has been expanding internationally both within and outside of Central Europe, including locations in Russia and China. The firm’s highly competent and experienced staff from across the globe provide holistic and high-quality design services, including but not limited to the initial planning assessment, conceptual design, construction documentation, and administration, as well as interior, furniture and landscape design. With its strength in large-scale facilities, studioGA strives to maximize “added architectural values” to each project that might otherwise be merely an “efficient-but-boring box.” 

studioGA creates dynamic, awe-inspiring spaces through complex geometries or through simple logic. The company skillfully optimizes details and construction strategies to achieve these complexities and to successfully carry through on the initial design intents. Unlike large, corporate architectural firms, studioGA is dedicated to ensuring that all clients receive personal care while also achieving one-of-a-kind architecture.
StudioGA believes that a strong owner-architect relationship is equally essential to our competencies in order for long-lasting benefits for investors and operators.

Michael Young is a founding partner of the architectural design studio Young & Ayata and Assistant Professor at the Cooper Union in New York. On his return visit to Städelschule, Young will speak about our contemporary image culture:

‘As we bluntly evaluate our digital image culture and its ceaseless flow through Internet dissemination, it becomes more and more difficult to divide the production of architectural representation into two clear cut species. The images formerly known as drawings are behaving socially more and more like the images formerly known as photographs. It is apparent that the way architecture has used to value certain genres of representation over others will no longer be sufficient for our current situation. In order to have some modicum of hope for architectural discourse and pedagogy within this image deluge, it may be necessary to question several of our disciplinary assumptions regarding the fear of the image. Specifically, when considering images, we may need to look a little closer at photography's relation to realism, at digital vs. mechanical reproduction, and at the ties between aesthetics and politics.’

Young & Ayata were awarded a Design Vanguard Award from Architectural Record for 2016 and received a first place prize to design the new Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany, in 2015. Their work has been widely exhibited internationally, and Michael Young is with his writing on image culture, geometry and sensation in relation to aesthetic discourse a frequent contributor a various publications. Young has taught at numerous universities and been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Princeton University, and the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University, as well as a visiting professor at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan, and the Crete Technical University in Greece. Michael received his Master's Degree from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

WE REGRET TO INFORM THAT THE LECTURE IS CANCELLED! 

Since 2015 Hernan Diaz Alonso is the director of SCI-Arc, currently one of the leading schools in architecture worldwide. He is widely credited with spearheading SCI-Arc’s transition to digital technologies, and he played a key role in shaping the school’s graduate curriculum over the last decade.

In parallel to his role at SCI-Arc, Diaz Alonso is principal of the Los Angeles–based HAD-x (Hernan Diaz Alonso creative agency). His multi-disciplinary practice is praised for its work at the intersection of design, animation, interactive environments, fashion and speculative architectural explorations. 

Over the course of his career as an architect and educator, Diaz Alonso has earned accolades for his leadership and innovation, as well as his ability to build partnerships among varied constituencies. In 2005 he was the winner of MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program (YAP) competition, and in 2012 he received the Educator of the Year award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He won the 2013 AR+D Award for Emerging Architecture and a 2013 Progressive Architecture Award for his design of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Pavilion/Museum in Patagonia, Argentina.

Diaz Alonso’s architectural designs have been featured in exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the London Architecture Biennale, and ArchiLab in Orleans, France, as well as included in exhibitions at such leading museums as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); the Art Institute of Chicago; and MAK Centre, Vienna. The work has been widely published in magazines, journals, and books, including the Excessive monograph of Xefirotarch. The office is currently working on a new monograph to be published by Thames and Hudson. Diaz Alonso’s work is in the permanent collections of the FRAC Centre, Orleans, France; SFMOMA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Thyssen-Bornemisza, the MAK Museum, Vienna; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Diaz Alonso has held a series of prestigious academic appointments; these include Yale University’s Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorship of Architectural Design (2010), Visiting Design Studio Faculty at the GSAPP at Columbia University (2004–10), an ongoing appointment as architectural design professor in the Urban Strategies Postgraduate Program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and as a Distinguished Faculty Member at SCI-Arc. In spring 2015 he served as Yale University’s Eero Saarinen Professor of Architectural Design, and in 2018 he was chosen as one of the 25th most admired educators in USA.

In his lecture Diaz Alonso will speak about the work of his office for the last 15 years.

SAC is presenting its lecture series for the summer semester 2018.

HOSTED BY STÄDELSCHULE STIFTUNG FÜR BAUKUNST

The next lecture takes place on the 27th of March 2017 at 18:00 in STÄDELSCHULE AULA. The following videos are part of a special Lecture Series catered for the First Year Group.