UDM architecture Michael Rotondi lecture DATE HAS CHANGED

Please note: The date for the first lecture of
University of Detroit Mercy’s architecture series has been changed to 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 31. The event had been scheduled for Jan. 24.

The series features lectures from four leading architects in the first quarter of 2007.

The first lecture, entitled “Stillpoint,” will take place on Jan. 31 at 6:30 p.m. and will be given by Los Angeles architect Michael Rotondi.

Rotondi first gained prominence in firm Morphosis with partner Thom Mayne. In his own firm, Roto, he began to “gear his practice [towards] social justice and social good” according to Julie Kim, UDM architecture professor and curator of the lecture series.

To this end, Kim says that Rotondi often focuses on “working with non-profits and trying to basically open up the field of architecture to clients like that.” One of his 1990’s projects was the design of a new campus for Sinte Gleska University, the oldest tribal college in the United States and he has since designed the Oglala Lakota Fine Arts Center, both in South Dakota.

Kim was interested in the shift in his work “from glitzy, sexy projects” and hopes that “students and local practitioners will share this enthusiasm for his work.”

Rotondi has been on faculty at Southern California Institute of Architecture since the early 1970’s. Kim says, “He has maintained teaching as one of the layers of what he does.”

Future lectures include:

• Dan Hoffman, professor at Arizona State University and former head of architecture at Cranbrook – Feb. 23, 5 p.m.
• Renée Daoust Lestage from Montreal, Canada – Mar. 14, 6:30 p.m.
• David Adjaye from London, England – Mar. 26, 6:30 p.m.
  

The lectures will be held at the Warren Loranger Architecture Building at UDM. More information about each of the speakers can be found at the Architecture School’s website.

Source: Julie Kim, UDM