March 30, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall

Ben van Berkel + Hernan Diaz Alonso: Duel + Duet

Ben van Berkel, Professor AA Dipl. (Hons), (F)RIBA, Hon. FAIA, Founder/Principal Architect UNStudio UNStudio

Hernan Diaz Alonso, Principal and Founder, Xefirotarch and SCI-Arc Director/CEO

Ben van Berkel studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987. In 1988 he and Caroline Bos set up an architectural practice in Amsterdam, extending their theoretical and writing projects to the practice of architecture. UNStudio presents itself as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects include the design for Doha's Integrated Metro Network in Qatar, the Raffles City mixed-use development in Hangzhou and the Canaletto Tower in London. With UNStudio he realized amongst others the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, restructuring the station area of Arnhem, a façade and interior renovation for the Galleria Department store in Seoul, a private villa up-state New York and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. Ben van Berkel has lectured and taught at many architectural schools around the world. Currently he is Professor Conceptual Design at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt am Main and was recently awarded the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor's Chair at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Hernan Diaz Alonso assumed directorship of SCI-Arc in September 2015. A faculty member at the school since 2001, he has served in several leadership roles including Coordinator of the Graduate Thesis program from 2007-2010, and Graduate Programs Chair from 2010 until the present. He has been widely credited with spearheading the transition of SCI-Arc to digital technologies, playing a key role in shaping the school’s graduate curriculum. In parallel to his role at SCI-Arc, Diaz Alonso is Principal of the Los Angeles-based Xefirotarch, a multidisciplinary practice praised for work at the intersection of design, animation, interactive environments and radical exploration of architecture. A gifted educator, he has been acknowledged throughout the years with prestigious appointments such as Yale University’s Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorship of Architectural Design in 2010, Visiting Design Studio Faculty at Columbia GSAPP from 2004-2010, and an ongoing appointment in the Urban Strategies Postgraduate Program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In spring 2015, he served as Yale University’s Eero Saarinen Professor of Architectural Design. 

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