Events

Lecture by Sylvia Lavin.

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Sylvia Lavin, professor of history and theory of architecture at Princeton University, School of Architecture, will lecture on Tuesday 17 October at 5 pm.

The lecture is part of the University by Design event series — coproduced by the Architecture Programs of the Daniel and Gayle D’Aniello Syracuse University in Florence, California State University International Programs Italy and Kent State University Florence — which focuses on the topic of studying architecture abroad. This collaborative forum will consist of two public lectures aimed at reimagining the collective educational space and proposing innovative models for contemporary practice.

Sylvia Lavin is a critic, curator, historian and theorist whose work explores the limits of architecture across a wide spectrum of historical periods. She is Professor of Architecture at Princeton University and was Chairperson of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA. Her books and catalogs include Architecture Itself and Other Postmodernization Effects, Kissing Architecture, and Everything Loose Will Land: 1970s Art and Architecture in Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Art and Archaeology at Columbia University, and has received numerous awards and grants including from the Getty Research Institute, the Graham Foundation, the AIA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is currently working on a book about trees.

Lecture by Massimo Alvisi (Alvisi Kirimoto).

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Massimo Alvisi, architect and founding partner at Rome-based Alvisi Kirimoto, will lecture on Tuesday 3 October at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED. His lecture, titled “Tension and Release”, will be introduced by prof. Paola Giaconia.

Massimo’s presentation will center on his and Junko Kirimoto’s approach to architectural design. In a recent interview, Philip Jodidio observed how “What speaks in their projects is also the light, the shadows, the openly expressed materials, the avowed desire to be universal combined with an acceptance that everything, even a concrete wall, changes with time and is ultimately ephemeral. But the point is not so much the wall as it is the empty space fashioned by the architects, a space for ‘something to be added’.”

Alvisi Kirimoto is an international practice that works in the field of architecture, urban planning and design. Founded by Massimo Alvisi and Junko Kirimoto in 2002, the firm stands out for its sartorial approach to design, “sensitive” use of technology and control of space, starting from the manipulation of “sheets of paper”. Dialogue with nature, urban regeneration and attention to social issues make its projects unique in the international architectural scene.
By merging Italian and Japanese sensibilities, the office has carried out numerous projects in and beyond Italy. These include the Medlac Pharma industrial plant in Hanoi, Vietnam (2011); the Incà complex of small and medium industries in Barletta (2010), the new Molino Casillo headquarters (2012) and the restoration of the Teatro Comunale di Corato (2012) in Puglia; the refurbishment of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg (2013); the Podernuovo Winery in Palazzone, Tuscany (2013); the executive offices for a private client on the 32nd floor of a skyscraper in the heart of Chicago (2018); the restoration and expansion of Villa K, a historic farmhouse in the Langhe, Piedmont (2018); and the Great Hall of the LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome (2018). In addition to this, the firm collaborated with OMA as Executive and Local Architect at the Prada Foundation project in Milan (2015).

www.alvisikirimoto.it

 

Lecture by Gilles Delalex (Studio Muoto).

1024 710 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Gilles Delalex, architects and principal at Studio Muoto in Paris, will lecture on Tuesday 7 March at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED. His lecture, titled “Practices of Freedom”, will be introduced by prof. Marco Brizzi.

Gilles’s presentation will delve into how, with his architectural practice, they are constantly engaged in public discussions and debates and how concerned they are with the publicness of architecture.

Gilles Delalex is a principal of the French architecture firm Muoto, based in Paris. Muoto was founded by Gilles Delalex and Yves Moreau in 2003. Its activities cover the fields of architecture, urban planning, design, teaching, and scientific research. Its work often features minimal structures that can combine different activities, evolve in time, and merge economical and aesthetic issues. Since its establishment the office has completed various projects ranging from master plans, public buildings, housing, and installations. Muoto was selected to curate the French pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
Gilles studied in Grenoble, Montreal, Brussels, and Manchester. He holds a DA (Doctor of Arts) from the University of Art & Design Helsinki. He is a professor at Paris-Malaquais School of Architecture, head of the THP (Theory, History, Project) Department, and co-director of the research lab LIAT focusing on infrastructures.

www.studiomuoto.com

 

Lecture by Fabio Gigone and Angela Gigliotti (U67).

1024 724 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Fabio Gigone and Angela Gigliotti, architects and co-founders at U67, based in Aarhus, Denmark, will lecture on Tuesday 14 February at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Tsuyoshi Tane is a Japanese architect based in Paris. Born in Tokyo, he Graduated from Hokkaido Tokai University in Japan in 2002 and completed the Post-graduate program at The Royal Danish Academy of fine Arts in Denmark in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005 he worked at Henning Larsen Architects in Denmark and at David Adjaye Associates in the UK. He founded ATTA – Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects in Paris in 2017, after being co-founder of DGT in 2006. Tsuyoshi believes in the idea that architecture belongs to the memory of the place and unfolded his thinking in the concept of “Archaeology of the Future”. Among his major works are the Estonian National Museum (2016), the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art (2020), the Al Thani Collection (2021). He is currently working on the Imperial Hotel Tokyo to be completed in 2036. In his career, he has received numerous awards and honors, including the Grand Prix AFEX 2021 – French Architects Overseas, the Jean Dejean Prize by the Académie d’Architecture Française, the Estonian Cultural Endowment Grand Prix. He was nominated for the European Union Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017. He published the monograph “TSUYOSHI TANE Archaeology of the Future” (TOTO publisher).
www.at-ta.fr

Lecture by Tsuyoshi Tane (Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects).

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Tsuyoshi Tane, architect and principal at Paris-based Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects, will lecture on Tuesday 7 February at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Tsuyoshi Tane is a Japanese architect based in Paris. Born in Tokyo, he Graduated from Hokkaido Tokai University in Japan in 2002 and completed the Post-graduate program at The Royal Danish Academy of fine Arts in Denmark in 2003. Between 2003 and 2005 he worked at Henning Larsen Architects in Denmark and at David Adjaye Associates in the UK. He founded ATTA – Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects in Paris in 2017, after being co-founder of DGT in 2006. Tsuyoshi believes in the idea that architecture belongs to the memory of the place and unfolded his thinking in the concept of “Archaeology of the Future”. Among his major works are the Estonian National Museum (2016), the Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art (2020), the Al Thani Collection (2021). He is currently working on the Imperial Hotel Tokyo to be completed in 2036. In his career, he has received numerous awards and honors, including the Grand Prix AFEX 2021 – French Architects Overseas, the Jean Dejean Prize by the Académie d’Architecture Française, the Estonian Cultural Endowment Grand Prix. He was nominated for the European Union Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017. He published the monograph “TSUYOSHI TANE Archaeology of the Future” (TOTO publisher).
www.at-ta.fr

Lecture by Stefano Pujatti (ELASTICOFarm).

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Stefano Pujatti,architect and principal at ELASTICOFarm, will lecture on Tuesday October 25 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

ELASTICOFarm is an architecture and product design studio founded by Stefano Pujatti, Alberto Del Maschio and Sara dal Gallo in 2005, based in Chieri and Pordenone (Italy) and Toronto (Canada). 

Stefano Pujatti was visiting professor at the University of Toronto from 2014 to 2016, at the Faculty of Architecture of the Politecnico di Torino from 2005 to 2014 and has been invited as a speaker at numerous university institutions including RMIT in Melbourne, Hosei University in Tokyo, Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, IUAV Venice. 

In architecture, ELASTICOFarm’s research focuses on the relationship between the forces and elements of nature, their impact on man and the built environment. Every new project is an opportunity to study and experiment with materials, technology and geometry. Their buildings and products have won important acknowledgements at national and international exhibitions, awards and publications. These include the Venice Architecture Biennale (2006, 2010, 2014, 2021), the monographic exhibition Form Matters at the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto (2015), the in/arch-ANCE award (2006). Elastico Farm was a finalist of the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2013 and nominated in 2019 and in 2022 with two projects: Le bâtiment descendant l’escalier and Houses of cards. In the field of product design in 2019 ELASTICOFarm won first prize at the RED DOT Award, the LF design Award and the Green Design Award. 

The monograph Architettura al sangue was published in 2008. In 2019 ELASTICOFarm was guest-editor of an issue of the IQD magazine titled I Don’t Know. 

Lecture by Alberto Iacovoni (ma0).

1024 345 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Alberto Iacovoni, architect and founding partner at ma0, will lecture on Tuesday october 18 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Alberto Iacovoni, architect, is a founding member of the architecture firm ma0/emmeazero (www.ma0.it), which started in 1996. Between 1999 and 2004 he was a member of Stalker/Osservatorio Nomade (www.osservatorionomade.net). Constantly drawing upon the feedback between theory and practice through commissions, competitions, lectures, and workshops, each project becomes for ma0 an opportunity to explore the relationship between form and social role of architecture, which is, by choice, an open, interactive and process-based device.

The built projects are at present the Maria Grazia Cutuli School in Herat, Afghanistan (finalist at the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2013), the new library for the Lombardi School, Piazza Risorgimento and the public garden in via Matarrese in Bari, a square with underground parking in Macomer.

The most relevant unbuilt commissions are the Pincetto garden multifunctional complex in Perugia (1998-04), a masterplan for the city of Almere in The Netherlands (2007), the detailed design for the facades and public spaces of the Xi’An Milan Park Mall in Xi’an in China (2015) and a recent feasibility study for a museum for Acea in Rome (2021).

The work of ma0 has received several awards in national and international competitions, and was featured in important exhibitions, such as the 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Their projects were published in the most prestigious magazines and publications of architecture. 

Alberto has lectured at various universities and institutes, such as INARCH – National Institute of Architecture, Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, NABA in Milan, and Cornell in Rome. Since 2000 he has taught at IED – Istituto Europeo di Design (www.ied.it) in Rome, where he was Director from 2009 to 2012, and later Scientific Director. Currently he is coordinator for the Master course in Exhibit Design at IED in Rome. 

Among his publications are Game Zone. Playgrounds Between Virtual Scenarios and Reality (Birkhauser, 2003); Playscape (Libria, 2010); and Il libretto rosa di ma0. Teoria e pratica del realismo utopico / Ma0’s Little Pink Book. Theory and Practice of Utopian Realism (2016).

Lecture by Annalisa Metta (OS/A).

1024 597 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Annalisa Metta, founding partner at OS/A (OPEN SPACE / ARCHITECTURE), will lecture on Tuesday September 27 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

OS/A (OPEN SPACE / ARCHITECTURE) is a design studio, founded in 2021 from the previous experience of Osa architettura e paesaggio, already established in Rome in 2007. OS/A deals mainly with the design of open spaces, elaborating projects for parks of various kinds and scales, public and private gardens, squares, playgrounds and urban spaces, temporary installations, recovery of historical gardens, archaeological and monumental areas, infrastructures, reclamation of abandoned or under reconversion industrial sites. Its focus is landscape as an agent, in relation with the behaviours of human and not human beings.

Lecture by Filippo Bricolo (Bricolo+Falsarella).

1024 597 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Filippo Bricolo, founding partner at Bricolo+Falsarella, will lecture on Tuesday September 20 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Francesca Falsarella and Filippo Bricolo studied at IUAV in Venice where they graduated together with full marks and honors. After some experience, in 2003 they set up Bricolo Falsarella associati based in their studio house on the Morainic hills of Garda Lake (Verona). Their works have received important awards in Italy and Europe. In 2015 they won the Architettiverona Prize for the restoration of Villa Saccomani in Sommacampagna, a prize they won again in 2021 with the Brolo della Cantina Gorgo in Custoza. The latter project was included in the exhibition “Nuove Cantine Italiane. Territori e Architetture” produced by Casabella, for which they also curated the installation at Palazzo Balladoro on the occasion of Vinitaly 2022. In the field of museography they have curated several installations at the Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, where they finally restored the East Wing, working in the spaces left unfinished by Carlo Scarpa. Their works have been published in important magazines such as Casabella and Abitare. With reference to their intensely contextual and humanized architecture, they have been invited to hold conferences in Italy and abroad. Filippo Bricolo holds a PhD in architectural composition from the IUAV in Venice and has been continuously teaching for several years. He currently teaches at the Mantua campus of the Politecnico di Milano with Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan, with whom he has a long-standing collaboration.

www.bricolofalsarella.it

Lecture by Davide Rapp (-orama).

1024 732 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Davide Rapp, architect and video artist, will lecture on Tuesday March 8 at 5 pm at Kent State University Florence CAED.

Davide Rapp (1980) is a Video Artist. Architect and Ph.D in Interior Design at Politecnico di Milano, he works across the fields of architecture and cinema producing mixed-media installations, movie montages and video-essays. In 2014 he participated as a contributor in the 14th International Architecture Exhibition – Fundamentals (Biennale Venezia, 2014) with ‘Elements’, a 32 minutes long montage of short architecture-related clips specifically conceived for the exhibition ‘Elements of Architecture’ curated by Rem Koolhaas, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 2021 he participated in competition at the 78th Venice International Film Festival with the virtual reality montage film “Montegelato”. His montage films and video essays have been screened in international museums and film festivals. The Milano Film Festival hosted his first retrospective in 2016 and the magazines “Cahiers du Cinéma” and “Sight & Sound” have included his montages among the most interesting video essays online. He is founder and creative director of the Milan-based creative agency ‘-orama’.

www.dashorama.eu