The University of New Mexico (UNM) has announced Chris Cornelius as their new Chair of the Department of Architecture. A prominent advocate for the awareness of architecture’s connection with culture, particularly American Indian culture, Cornelius is set to take up the role on November 1st, 2021.

An enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Cornelius is also the founding principal of studio:indigenous, a design practice which serves American Indian clients. Back in 2017, to mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Archinect included Cornelius’s firm in a list of our favorite contemporary practices led by Indigenous architects.

His work has been recognized through numerous honors, including a Smithsonian Institution Artist in Residence Fellowship from the National Museum of the American Indian in 2003, and the 2017 Miller Prize from Exhibit Columbus. He was also among a group of Indigenous architects who represented Canada at the 2018 Venice Biennale.  

Cornelius has been a faculty member in the Department of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 2004, and was named a Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor of Architectural Design at Yale University in 2021. He has also previously taught at the University of Virginia, from where he holds a Master of Architecture degree. In tandem with his academic credentials, Cornelius has also won international acclaim for this design work, including his Radio Free Alcatraz drawings exploring the 1969–1971 occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

Cornelius’s appointment is the latest in a series of recent news stories from the University of New Mexico. In July, we reported on the news that Studio Ma had been selected to lead the design for the university’s College of Fine Arts expansion. Also in July, the UNM’s Dean of Architecture and Planning Robert Alexander González was announced as the new president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).

In June, meanwhile, during an event held by the UNM School of Architecture and Planning to celebrate the 85th birthday of Antonie Predock, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller declared June 24, 2021 “Antoine Predock Day” to honor the work of the internationally acclaimed architect.