lecture Series - John Peterson and Public Architecture

poster by andi solk, m.arch option III student and head of the lecture series committee

When possible, I try to catch the guest speakers we are privileged to at the University of Oregon. It can be exciting to see people who are fully dedicated to professional practice speak about their work, and most of them know how to keep their audience captivated with interesting stories and sexy pictures. If nothing else, when a guest lecturer visits the school, it provokes students to go out of their way to look at some unfamiliar work. This in turn broadens our education and sometimes I walk away from a presentation having found a major influence and inspiration. Some favorites of mine have included Kengo Kuma, Anna Maria Orru, and James Wines.

It's not always easy to get architecture students and professors to attend these lectures, which is part of what made Friday night such a nice surprise. John Peterson of Public Architecture came to Lawrence Hall 177 and spoke to a rather enthusiastic, comparatively large crowd of students and professors at 5:30 pm - a time when most people in Lawrence are either burned out from a full week of studio and headed to happy hour, or anxious to get home and crash because they've only slept six hours since Wednesday. I think the attendance at John's lecture speaks partially to the caliber of the work his firm has accomplished, and volumes to the common interest in our community revolving around design as a means for social activism. John Peterson is the founder of the 1% pro bono design program, an offshoot of his private firm, Peterson Architects.

John's presentation was a really nice way for me to cap off the last few weeks. His message, his firm's work, and his passions were clear and admirable. But it was his delivery and the intentional, often successful strategies he used to communicate the importance of an idea to the audience that most impressed me. I have spent the last seven or eight months trying to understand the role of architecture today and how I possibly fit into it, or what I am doing with this education. Over the last few weeks I have done my best to narrow my interests in order to articulate them for a fellowship that I am applying for through the University. What excited me about John's lecture was not only that the work he does is making an enormous impact on the way we define and understand architectural practice, but his presentation was so obviously representative of the skills we are trying to learn in the architectural education - whether we know it or not.

Between now and Friday I need to have an essay written to map out my academic plans over the next year and a half. I will be using this blog to help write that essay. Any feedback, critical or not, would be extremely helpful this week - even from my mom, who will undoubtedly tell me how much she likes my work :)