UK-trained, Scottish-Ghanaian architect, academic, and best-selling novelist Lesley Lokko has been named as the dean of the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture (SSA) at The City College of New York (CCNY).
Lokko comes to CCNY with over a quarter-century of academic experience teaching in schools across the U.K., United States, and South Africa. Lokko was educated at the Bartlett School of Architecture and earned her doctorate in architecture from the University of London in 2007.
She is currently director of the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, a 100-student program Lokko founded in 2015. Under Lokko's stewardship, the program has grown from an initial 11-student cohort to become the largest dedicated postgraduate school of architecture in Africa.
In a press release announcing her selection, Lokko said, “This is an incredible opportunity and such an honor. It’s an exciting and challenging time to be joining the school’s conversations around architecture, urbanism and landscape architecture,” adding, “CCNY’s diverse staff and student communities, its location in one of the world’s greatest urban environments and its commitment to architecture as a tool for social change place it firmly at the center of global conversations about the role, scope and responsibilities of architects worldwide.”
In 2000, Lokko published White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture; She is also the editor-in-chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture, and sits on the editorial board of ARQ. As a novelist, Lokko has published 11 best-selling books.
Lokko’s appointment is effective December 2019.
I'm kind of overwhelmed and enormously optimistic about so many women being named to head architecture schools in recent weeks!
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Why must you label her ethnicity?
Maybe you should read "White Papers, Black Marks: Race, Culture, Architecture" for some answers.
Why must that be the only thing you pull out of the article?
Is that you, Heather?
I'm kind of overwhelmed and enormously optimistic about so many women being named to head architecture schools in recent weeks!
Yeah, almost like the schools are intentionally hiring women to look “progressive.”
Or to make up for generations of overlooked talent. I'm perfectly fine with this of late correction.
You’re fine with manipulating outcome to get a desired result?
yes, you incel.
That’s illegal.
This is awesome. Best of luck to Ms. Lokko!
Lesley is amazing. Congrats!
since women are so underpaid and rarely recognized in the practice of architecture, it helps to have some academic positions open to us
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