Starting in the fall, Scott Cohen will step up as chair of the arch. dept. at Harvard. Gund hall to be refinished with ruled surfaces. Everywhere.
GSD News Note
9 May 2008
Preston Scott Cohen Appointed Chair of the Department of Architecture
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Preston Scott Cohen as Chair of
the Department of Architecture as of 1 July 2008. He is the Gerald M. McCue
Professor of Architecture, coordinator of the first year design studios, and
he teaches the foundation course in projective and topological geometry,
advanced studios, and design thesis.
Cohen is recognized for his innovative geometric forms and his approach to
integrating buildings with their environments. The work of his firm, Preston
Scott Cohen, Inc. in Cambridge, encompasses projects that range in scale
from houses to educational and cultural institutions.
I am delighted that Scott has accepted this appointment. The school will
undoubtedly benefit from his deep intellectual commitment to the field of
architecture and his passion as both an educator and an architect. I have no
doubt that he will make a great contribution to the culture of collaboration
that I hope will be a hallmark of the GSD.
Cohen has produced numerous critically acclaimed projects and has won
international competitions for important buildings, including the Taiyuan
Art Museum, Taiyuan, China (2007-2010); the Robbins Elementary School,
Trenton, NJ (2006-2010); and the Amir Building, Tel Aviv Museum of Art
(2003-2009), presently under construction. Other projects currently under
construction include a Student Center for Nanjing University Xianlin Campus,
Jiang Su (2007-2009); a public arcade in Battery Park City in New York
(2005-2009); and the Ya Zhou Bay Science and Technology Center in Sanya,
Hainan Island (2008-2010).
Cohen is the author of
Contested Symmetries and Other Predicaments in Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2001). He is the recipient of numerous awards and
honors, including the Academy Award in Architecture from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters, three Progressive Architecture Awards, and The
Visionary Award from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His work has been widely
published and exhibited and is in numerous collections, including The Museum
of Modern Art, New York; The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and
the Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University.
Cohen has held faculty positions at Princeton University, Rhode Island
School of Design, and Ohio State University. He was the Frank Gehry
International Chair at the University of Toronto in 2004 and the Perloff
Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in 2002.
Please join me in welcoming Cohen to this important position for the school
and in thanking Professor Toshiko Mori for her support and leadership of the
department of architecture during the past six years.
Mohsen Mostafavi
Dean, Faculty of Design
12 Comments
whoa.
oh yeah
is there a press release?
i think a lot of people saw this coming...
bothhands - I've added it to the post...
Well timed. Now that he's finally building he'll step in with a better/broader perspective on the profession. Mad props.
what a disaster this will be. Didnt the GSD see how Detlef Mertins bombed at Penn. The Columbia model worked in the 90's, but its time to move on. I'm surprised Mohsen went along with this....the autonomy project is over.
I thinks you have misinterpreted the projected effects of this decision
I'm not sure Scott Cohen can be reduced to the "autonomy project" these days, and he's certainly not the same as Mertins -- plus who says Mertins has bombed anyway?
orgman, how do you see detlef bombing at penn?
Dig this essay up and take a look: "The Muses Are Not Amused: Pandemonium in the House of Architecture" by Jorge Silvetti HDM (Fall 2003)
5 years on and nothing has changed. The discipline keeps rehearsing the same tired modes of operation. The conversation continues to push the architectural discourse into a deeper state of irrelevance because of the regressive, self-referential way in which it operates. Technology as panacea is misguided without some companion agenda (beyond formal exceptionalism) driving its deployment.
Quite honestly I don't see what Scott Cohen is selling as being much different that what we have been witnessing elsewhere for the last decade (other than its nice, white modernist suit).
PS Have you seen what the architecture program at Penn is producing!? No Kool-Aid for me, thanks.
New Landscape Chair for the GSD???
http://asla.org/ISGWeb.aspx?loadURL=joblin
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