99th Annual Meeting

99annual

March 3-6, 2011 | Montréal, Québec, Canada
Hosted by McGill University and Université de Montréal 
Co-chairs: Alberto Pérez-Gómez, McGill U / Anne Cormier, U de Montréal / Annie Pedret, U of Illinois Chicago

Theme 

The New York Times architecture critic, Nicolai Ourousoff has described Toyo Ito’s work as being the “next step on the evolutionary chain,” calling out Ito’s belief that to create a human architecture it “must somehow embrace seemingly contradictory values.”  Ourousoff suggests that “instead of a self-contained utopia, [Ito] offers us multiple worlds, driving in and out of focus like a dream," embraces ambiguity, is interested in the realm of the “in between,” and “forces us to look at the world through a wider lens.” Ito, like many architects who came to prominence in the past decade, aims to expand possibilities and, in doing so, to make room for a wider range of human experience.

This demand for a wider agenda for modern architecture, introduced to the discipline in the 1950s and followed by Postmodernism’s demands for greater diversity, has left the discipline open—wide open—perhaps too open. Free from the universalist, utopian confines of Modernism, and working in an intellectual context that embraces a more complex conception of contemporary reality, architects are now not only free, but required to interpret and, indeed, choose their position relative to this expanded field. With such choice comes the responsibility to ask: Where Do You Stand?

The purpose of this conference is to provide a venue to articulate, develop, and question where you stand with respect to your thinking and doing in architecture.


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CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS (99th Annual Meeting)

  • Paper Presenters
  • Poster Presenters


Keynote Lecturers

Mason White, Lateral Office Mason White has a B.Arch from Virginia Tech and an M.Arch from Harvard Graduate School of Design. He is Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design. White founded Lateral Office in 2002 in partnership with Lola Sheppard, and is a founding Director of InfraNet Lab, an exploratory initiative launched in 2008. He is the 2008-09 Arthur W Wheelwright Fellow from Harvard Graduate School of Design for design research on Arctic occupation. In 2010, Lateral Office was selected for Emerging Voices Award from the Architectural League of New York. He is an editor of the new journal "Bracket: Architecture, Environment, Digital Culture" published by Actar, and a co-author of "Pamphlet Architecture 30: Coupling" published by Princeton Architectural Press, both in 2010.

Nasrine Seraji, Atelier Seraji Architectes & Associés Nasrine Seraji founded Atelier Seraji in 1990. Formed by her early experience at London’s Architectural Association, she subsequently worked in large architectural offices in England and the United States before coming to France. Over the years, Seraji has pursued a path constantly enriched by her simultaneous engagement in architectural practice, teaching, and research. She directs the Institute of Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, as well as the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA) Paris - Malaquais. Seraji has lectured and exhibited widely in Europe, the United States, and Asia. In addition to having written numerous essays and catalogues on architecture and urbanism, she has been awarded the Médaille d’Argent de la Formation by the French Academy of Architecture, and named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite in France.