Spring 2024 public programs

This spring, the UIC School of Architecture hosts a vibrant public program defined by the belief in the value of learning from each other.

Lecture series
5:30pm, 1100 Architecture + Design Studios

Pairing school faculty with guests from the global architecture community, the spring 2024 lecture series brings together diverse voices to engage pressing questions. The series seeks to pull the school into broader conversations occurring in society today, as well as integrate contemporary discourse and criticism into the school in fresh, playful ways. All events are free and open to the public. For accessibility accommodations, please contact us at arch [​at​] uic.edu.

January 23: Stan Allen “Buildings and Books”
Allen argues that architects design and build, but they also write, draw, exhibit, lecture, and teach. Architects design buildings, but they also design cities, furniture, interiors, landscapes, and infrastructures. And today, architects must also operate in the realm of digital media. The lecture is an overview of three decades of practice, seen through the lens of drawing, designing, building, and making books: the parallel cultures of photography, graphic design, and writing.
Respondent: Zehra Ahmed.

February 12: Future Firm
Chicago-based architecture and design research office Future Firm, founded by Ann Lui and Craig Reschke, has been selected as this year’s Student Choice Lecture for the UIC School of Architecture’s lecture series.
1pm.

March 14: Sergio Lopez-Pineiro “Reimagining Assembly Spaces for Face-to-Face Democracies”
Lopez-Piniero presents the book Typologies for Big Words and the design research that has followed it on the contemporary need to renew the old spatial imagination deployed at the dawn of modern democracies.
Respondent: Barbara Materia.

March 28: Liliane Wong “Adaptive Reuse / Time Mirrored”
Wong explores reuse in the built environment over half a century to understand how a millennia-old and unremarkable practice, formally defined only in 1973, has come into its own in the 21st century.
Respondent: Melissa Rovner.

April 8: Mark Lee “After Gropius”
Lee discusses current and past projects of Johnston Marklee through the lens of collaborative models, curatorial practices, and agglomerative organizations. These frameworks transcend and connect divergent scales from buildings and interiors to exhibition and urban designs.
Respondent: Stewart Hicks.

April 18: Cédric Van Parys “Sentinels. Iron Portals of Chicagoland”
As the Garofalo Fellow for 2023–24, Cédric Van Parys has investigated and transformed the meaning of the billboard as a representative monument of American culture by juxtaposing and reconciling word, image, and object. The lecture elaborates on his creative process, from initial research to conceptual and material appropriation, and follows the opening of the exhibition Sentinels at UIC/SoArch.
6pm, Graham Foundation, 4 West Burton Place Chicago, Illinois 60610.

Wednesday Episodes are We@UIC
Wednesdays at 1pm, 1100 Architecture + Design Studios.

Every month, on some Wednesdays, we meet to share experiences and projects generated within and throughout the school community. These events aim to invoke an open-mic sensibility that supports intimate and productive conversations. All are welcome.

January 31: Vincent Calabro presents the work of Office of Things, highlighting projects that insert artful gestures into everyday life by carving out space for pause and respite, playfully engaging a passersby, or threading bits of wonder into unexpected places.

February 21: Professional Portfolio Panel explores the difference between academic and professional portfolios. The conversation between distinguished working architects (including some UIC alums) is moderated by Director of Graduate Studies Sarah Blankenbaker.

March 13: Francesco Marullo elaborates on recent publications and current research projects investigating the relationship between labor struggle, architecture, and abstraction.

March 27: Sean Lally discusses how designs that explore living with the glitches, snags, and unintended consequences of our ambitions might better serve not only our disciplines but also the broader world in which we live.

April 10: Judith De Jong reflects on her recent experience of urbanism in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Other events
April 5: Exhibition opening Sentinels
Cédric Van Parys, Garofalo Fellow 23–24.
6pm.

April 29: Pollen – The UIC/SoArch Journal book launch 
6pm.

May 3: YES, Year End Show
5–8pm.

Contact us at arch [​at​] uic.edu. More information at arch.uic.edu.