Lectures

Spring 2021 Sciame Lecture Series: Balkrishna Doshi and Barry Bergdoll

Architecture and Geographies of Difference

Please join us for the new SCIAME Lecture Series, titled &/Or. "Architecture and Geographies of Difference" will feature Balkrishna Doshi and Barry Bergdoll in conversation on architecture and culture, moderated by Viren Brahmbhatt (prerecorded due to the time difference).

Free and open to the public - Please register for this Zoom event here.

In this online series, curators Viren Brahmbhatt, Ali C. Höcek, and Martin Stigsgaard argue that the traditional format of a single lecturer speaking to an audience sets up a binary opposite all of its own -- speaker/listener, which simply reinforces the power structure between those who "possess" knowledge and those who "consume" it. In its place, the &/Or Online Dialogues will present two speakers in conversation with each other, moderated by a third. The series features prominent artists, activists, and architects from across the globe who will discuss their work and the unique political and environmental challenges they confront.

Balkrishna Doshi, recipient of the prestigious Pritzker Prize (2018), is one of the pioneers of modernist architecture in India. In a career spanning several decades, Doshi completed more than 100 projects, including public institutions, schools, libraries, art centers, and low-cost housing. His buildings adapted the principles he learned from working with Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn to the needs of people considering India’s traditions, lifestyles, and environment. Doshi is an important figure in Indian architecture, noted for his contribution to the evolution of architectural discourse in India. Noteworthy projects: IIM Bangalore, IIM Udaipur, NIFT Delhi, Amdavad ni Gufa, CEPT University, Aranya Low-Cost Housing (awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture).

Barry Bergdoll is the Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History at Columbia University and the former Chief Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007-2014). A specialist in the history of modern architecture, he has curated exhibitions at MoMA, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Musée d’Orsay, and Mies in Berlin (2001), Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955- 1980 and Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive (2017). A former President of the Society of Architectural Historians, Bergdoll is the President of the Board of the Center for Architecture, New York.

Sciame Lecture Series with additional funding provided by the Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture Fund