Events

Spring 2019, lecture by Bernard Khoury.

Lecture by Bernard Khoury.

1024 419 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
Bernard Khoury of DW5 / Bernard Khoury, based in Beirut, Lebanon, will be at Palazzo Vettori presenting recent works by his office on Tuesday April 9 at 7 pm. His lecture, titled “Toxic Grounds”, will be introduced by prof. Marco Brizzi.
Bernard Khoury studied architecture at the Rhode Island school of Design (BFA 1990 / B.Arch 1991). He received a Master’s Degree in Architectural Studies from Harvard University (M.Arch 1993).
In 2001, he was awarded by the Municipality of Rome the honorable mention of the Borromini Prize given to architects under forty years of age. In 2004, he was awarded the Architecture+ Award.
He is the co-founder of the Arab Center for Architecture.
He was a visiting professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, L’École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris and the American University of Beirut. He has lectured and exhibited his work in over 120 prestigious academic institutions in Europe and the US including a solo show of his work given by the International Forum for Contemporary Architecture at the Aedes gallery in Berlin (2003) and numerous group shows including YOUprison at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin (2008) and Spazio at the opening show of the MAXXI museum in Rome (2010).
He was the co-curator and architect of the Kingdom of Bahrain’s national pavilion at the Venice Biennale’s 14th International Architecture Exhibition in 2014. His work has been extensively published by the professional press.
Khoury started an independent practice in 1993. Over the past twenty years, his office has developed an international reputation and a significant diverse portfolio of projects both locally and in over fifteen countries abroad.
Spring 2019, BETWEEN TOWER AND RIVER workshop with Università di Firenze.

BETWEEN TOWER AND RIVER workshop.

1024 647 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

The workshop “Between Tower and River”, that will run from Monday 1 to Friday 5 April 2019, continues the long-time collaboration between Kent State University Florence, College of Architecture & Environmental Design and DIDA, Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze.
Previous experiences have seen students engaged in architecture workshops and studios focused on the reconstruction of the urban fabric in small Tuscan historical centers: Bientina (2008), San Miniato (2011), and Magliano in Toscana (2017 and 2018).

The workshop will be led by professor Fabrizio Arrigoni from the Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze and professors Filippo Caprioglio, Alberto Francini, Paola Giaconia and Andrea Ponsi, and will be tutored by Antonio Acocella and Milena Blagojevic.

47 Architecture students enrolled at KSUF CAED and 21 students enrolled at UniFi will work side by side to design a new community center next to the Torrino di Santa Rosa as well as the open spaces between the bank of the river Arno and the road.

Located between Ponte Vespucci and Ponte della Vittoria, the Torrino di Santa Rosa is a building that was part of the defensive system of the third and last circle of walls. It dates back to 1324. Coming from Lungarno Soderini you can recognize the nineteenth-century tabernacle built between the city gate and the tower; it contains a Pietà (with Saints John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene) probably painted in the early sixteenth century and generally attributed to Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. The work is what remains of the nearby oratory of Santa Rosa di Viterbo, demolished in the mid-eighteenth century. Today, in the garden surrounding the tower, a modest building houses the premises of a recreational club.

Spring 2019, LOOK AT ME NOW! workshop at Kent State University Florence CAED. (Photo: Anna Positano).

LOOK AT ME NOW! Spring 2019 workshops.

1024 683 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design
The week after midterm reviews (March 18 – 21, 2019), students enrolled in the Architecture and in the Interior Design programs at Kent State University in Florence attended the fifth edition of the LOOK AT ME NOW! workshop.
Instructors were two architects, photographers and video makers who are especially talented in portraying contemporary architecture in photography and in video and who have extensive experience running workshops: Anna Positano and Davide Rapp.
The Photography workshop was run by Italian architect and photographer Anna Positano (http://theredbird.org). Anna is a photographer and an artist, with a background in architecture. She graduated in Architecture at the University of Genoa, then obtained her MA in Photography at the London College of Communication. Her work encompasses the reciprocal influence between landscape and society and explores everyday places. Her projects have been exhibited internationally, in art galleries and public institutions, such as La Triennale in Milan, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Cornell University, and Villa Croce Museum of Contemporary Art in Genoa. She works on commission for architects and public institutions. Her work is regularly published in international architectural magazines.
The Video workshop was run by Italian architect and video author Davide Rapp (https://vimeo.com/daviderapp/videos). Davide holds a Ph.D. in Interior Design from the Politecnico di Milan.  He collaborated for 5 years, between 2008 and 2013, with architect Stefano Boeri on urban, architectural and interior design projects including – among others – “Sustainable Dystopias”: a research project that explores different ideas surrounding the reconciliation between cities and nature, exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2008. participated in the 14th International Architecture Exhibition – Fundamentals (Biennale Venezia, 2014) with ‘Elements’, a movie montage of short architecture-related clips, conceived specifically for the introduction room of the exhibition ‘Elements of Architecture’, curated by Rem Koolhaas, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has been published in national and international architecture magazines such as Abitare, Icon Design, and The Architectural Review. He is co-author (with Alberto Iacovoni, Rome) of the graphic novel / architecture essay Playscape (Edizioni Libria, 2009), exploring the public space as an exciting and promising testing ground of possibilities.
On Thursday March 21, 2019 the students made a final presentation of the works produced in the course of the workshop in the lecture hall at Palazzo Vettori. Paola Giaconia, professor and Kent State University Florence CAED coordinator, and Marco Brizzi, professor of the Video, Media and Architecture course, offered a critical commentary on the students’ works.
Spring 2019, lecture by Casper Mork-Ulnes.

Lecture by Casper Mork-Ulnes (Mork-Ulnes Architects).

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

Casper Mork-Ulnes, principal at Mork-Ulnes Architects with offices in San Francisco and in Oslo, will lecture on Tuesday February 26 at Palazzo Vettori. His lecture, titled “Eight Houses in the Landscape”, will be introduced by prof. Andrea Ponsi.

With offices in San Francisco and Oslo, Mork-Ulnes Architects approaches projects with both Scandinavian practicality and Northern California’s ‘can-do’ spirit of innovation. 

Rigorous and concept-driven, the practice is based on built work characterized by both playfulness and restraint, and informed by economies of means and materials. Mork-Ulnes Architects have worked on projects ranging in scale  from masterplans to 100 square foot cabins, and have realized buildings on 3 continents. 

Mork-Ulnes Architects has been the recipient of numerous national and international honors, including Architectural Record’s 2015 worldwide Design Vanguard award. Mylla Cabin, a retreat they completed in the Norwegian forest, was nominated in November 2018 for The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.

Norwegian born, Casper Mork-Ulnes was raised in Italy, Scotland and the United States, which has brought a broad perspective to his eponymous firm’s work. In 2015, Casper was named one of “California’s finest emerging talent” by the American Institute of Architects California Council. He was selected by the Norwegian National Museum as one of “the most noteworthy young architects in Norway” with the exhibit “Under 40. Young Norwegian Architecture 2013.” Casper holds a Master of Architecture from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Architecture from California College of the Arts.

Spring 2019, lecture by Clara Murado.

Lecture by Clara Murado (Murado & Elvira).

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

Clara Murado, founding partner at Murado & Elvira in Madrid, Spain, will lecture on Tuesday February 19 at Palazzo Vettori. Her lecture, titled “Reading Spaces”, will be introduced by prof. Andrea Ponsi.

Murado & Elvira is a Madrid-based multidisciplinary office founded by Juan Elvira and Clara Murado in 2003 dedicated to innovative architecture and interior design.

Their work has been awarded in many national and international competitions, and has been exhibited at prestigious venues such as the Biennale di Venezia and the Bienal de Arquitectura Española. They have been finalists at the Norwegian national architecture prize Staten Byggeskikkpris 2012 and selected at the Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo 2013. In 2018 they were nominated for The European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award for their Baiona Public Library project.

With a youthful team of professionals, their coming projects are covering different scales and scopes, from housing and renewals to public buildings. They design spaces to breathe. Relaxed, loose fit environments that allow for an immediate personal appropriation of the user. They propose a sustainable approach to design, where user participation, shared creativity and building techniques seek to benefit both society and nature.

Clara Murado studied architecture at ETSAM in Madrid and spent one year at the IUAV in Venezia (Italy). After completing her architecture degree, she took a Master’s Degree in Advanced Architecture Design at Columbia University. She is Associate Professor in Project Design at the Universidad de Arquitectura de Alcalá and visiting professor at national and international schools.

Spring 2019, lecture by Adolfo Natalini.

Lecture by Adolfo Natalini.

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

Adolfo Natalini will lecture on Tuesday January 29 at Palazzo Vettori. Marco Brizzi will introduce him.

Adolfo Natalini is an Italian architect, author and designer, who was born in Pistoia, in 1941. After his experience as a painter, Natalini graduated in architecture in Florence in 1966 and founded Superstudio (with Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, Gian Piero Frassinelli, Roberto and Alessandro Magris and Alessandro Poli). The group was the initiator of the so-called Radical Architecture, one of the most important avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

Superstudio projects appeared in publications and international exhibitions and works are included in Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Deutsches Architekturtmuseum in Frankfurt am Main, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Maxxi in Rome.

In 1979, Natalini set up his own practice, focussing on projects for historical city centres in Italy and Europe, researching the traces of time on objects and places, and proposing a reconciliation between collective and personal memory.  In 1991, with Fabrizio Natalini, he opened his firm, Natalini Architetti. 

Adolfo Natalini was full professor of architectural design at the Florence Faculty of Architecture. He is a member of the Order of Architects of Florence, and an honorary member of the Bund Deutscher Architekten, an Honorary Fellow American Institute of Architects, an academic of the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence, the Accademia di Belle Arti of Carrara, and the Accademia di San Luca.

In Spring 2016 the Maxxi museum in Rome presented “Superstudio: 50 Years of Superarchitettura,” featuring over 200 examples of sketches, photographs, collages and films from the group’s archives, including work last seen in “Superarchitettura I,” the historic 1966 exhibition they held in Pistoia, Italy, in conjunction with Archizoom, another collective from Florence.

www.nataliniarchitetti.com

Lecture by Adrian Blanchard.

150 150 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Adrian Blanchard, architect at Natalini Architetti in Florence, will be at Palazzo Vettori on Thursday January 24, 2019 offering a special lecture, part of the program of the Architecture studios. The lecture is titled “A Brief History of Touching the Earth Lightly”.

Born in Pontefract, England in 1954, he has been with Natalini Architects in Florence since 1993 working on building technologies and environmental control strategies for projects throughout Italy, Holland and Germany. 

He has served  as visiting critic to Kent State University Florence Program. 

From 1982 until 1992 he was an associate with Acanthus LW Architects in London where he was practice representative for Acanthus Associated Architects, a network of British practices committed to the repair and reuse of old buildings. 

He was educated at Leeds Polytechnic School of Architecture and the Polytechnic of Central London and became a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1986 and a member of Ordine degli Architetti di Firenze in 1996.

www.nataliniarchitetti.com

Fall 2018, BETWEEN TOWER AND RIVER workshop with Università di Firenze.

BETWEEN TOWER AND RIVER workshop.

1024 880 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

The workshop “Between Tower and River”, that will run from Monday 5 to Thursday 8 November 2018, continues the long-time collaboration between Kent State University Florence, College of Architecture & Environmental Design and DIDA, Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze.
Previous experiences have seen students engaged in architecture workshops and studios focused on the reconstruction of the urban fabric in small Tuscan historical centers: Bientina (2008), San Miniato (2011), and Magliano in Toscana (2017 and 2018).

The workshop will be led by professor Fabrizio Arrigoni from the Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze and professor Paola Giaconia from Kent State University Florence CAED, and will be tutored by Antonio Acocella and Milena Blagojevic.

12 students enrolled at KSUF CAED and 8 students enrolled at UniFi will work side by side to design a new community center next to the Torrino di Santa Rosa as well as the open spaces between the bank of the river Arno and the road.

Located between Ponte Vespucci and Ponte della Vittoria, the Torrino di Santa Rosa is a building that was part of the defensive system of the third and last circle of walls. It dates back to 1324. Coming from Lungarno Soderini you can recognize the nineteenth-century tabernacle built between the city gate and the tower; it contains a Pietà (with Saints John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene) probably painted in the early sixteenth century and generally attributed to Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. The work is what remains of the nearby oratory of Santa Rosa di Viterbo, demolished in the mid-eighteenth century. Today, in the garden surrounding the tower, a modest building houses the premises of a recreational club.

Fall 2018, lecture by Davide Tommaso Ferrando.

Lecture by Davide Tommaso Ferrando.

1024 600 Kent State University, Florence Program | College of Architecture & Environmental Design

Davide Tommaso Ferrando, architecture researcher and critic, will be at Palazzo Vettori on Tuesday October 30, 2018 lecturing on “Architecture into the Universe of Social Media”, as part of the “Theories of Architecture” course directed by Marco Brizzi.

M.Arch in Advanced Architectural Design at ETSA Madrid and Ph.D in Architecture and Building Design at Politecnico di Torino, Davide Tommaso Ferrando is Post-Doc University Assistant in the Department of Architectural Theory and History at the University of Innsbruck. He has been adjunct professor at Politecnico di Torino, Università di Ferrara and ETSA Madrid, as well as invited lecturer in several institutions among which Politecnico di Milano, Domus Academy, Kent State University Florence and Universidad de Alcalá de Henares.

Director of “011+” and vide-director of “Viceversa”, his writings are published in international magazines and collective books. In 2016, he is curator with Daniel Tudor Munteanu of the “Unfolding Pavilion: Curated Archives” exhibition, and scientific consultant for the “Meeting the Commons” section of the Italian Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2017, he is curator with Nina Bassoli of the Festival “Architettura in Città” of Torino. In 2018, he is curator with Daniel Tudor Munteanu and Sara Favargiotti of the “Unfolding Pavilion: Little Italy” exhibition and symposium.

Editor of several publications, in 2018 he publishes his first monographic book: The City in the Image.

Fall 2018, lecture by Camillo Botticini.

Lecture by Camillo Botticini (ARW).

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

Camillo Botticini, founding partner at ARW, based in Brescia, will lecture on Tuesday October 30 at Palazzo Vettori. Marco Brizzi will introduce his presentation.

Camillo Botticini is currently professor at UEL University of East London. He taught architectural design at the Universidad de Navarra in Pamplona, at IUAV in Venice and at the Milan Polytechnic, where in 2003 he obtained his PhD in Architectural and Urban Design (“Relations, design and Identity in Contemporary architecture”).
After his PhD dissertation he developed a research about “relationships”, seen as the attitude of the project to transform the contexts starting from its structural comprehension.
With his studio, he won international competitions and also completed a series of buildings in Italy, Europe and around the world, highlighting the ability to combine theoretical research with a significant operational capability. He received important architectural awards such as the Italian Gold Medal (2012 special prize) and the first prize of the Italian institute of architecture InArch/ance (as best young Italian Architect 2006). He was selected for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award in 2007 and 2017.
He was shortlisted in international architectural prizes like the WAN Award, A prize, Copper Prize Batimat, Hauser and Ugo Rivolta. He was also selected to participate in the Venice Biennial of Architecture in 2000, 2010, 2014 and 2017. His works have been published in some of the most important architectural magazines (Casabella, Domus, A10, Mark, Detail, Hauser) and in the Phaidon Atlas of XXI Century Architecture.