Internationally known architectural designer to speak in Lawrence

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas students and community members have the opportunity to learn about architectural design by an internationally known expert.

Lars Spuybroek is a professor of architectural design at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He will speak Sept. 8 at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire, at 7 p.m.

“As designers, we have to do two seemingly opposite things,” said Spuybroek. “One is to find our way back to beauty, and the other is to start conceptualizing our new digital tools. I think the best is to combine these into one effort.”

Nils Gore, associate professor and interim chair of KU’s Department of Architecture, said computing technology has fundamentally changed not only the way architects design buildings, but also how contractors construct buildings.

“Lars Spuybroek's work is at the leading edge of experimentation and innovation in these realms,” Gore said.

Spuybroek’s work focuses on theory, design methodology and research in geometry and manufacturing. At Georgia, he is creating a curriculum that involves theoretical seminars, design studios and the manufacturing of large-scale models at Georgia Tech’s laboratory of computer numerical controlled machinery.

The principal of NOX art and architecture studio in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Spuybroek researches the relationship between art, architecture and computing, not only by building but also by writing, speaking and teaching.

A book by Spuybroek, “The Sympathy of Things, Ruskin and the Ecology of Design,” will be released in September. The book addresses five dual themes of 19th century art critic John Ruskin: the Gothic and work; ornament and matter; sympathy and abstraction; the picturesque and time; and ecology and design.

Sharon Perry Galloway of Lawrence and Roswell, Ga., and her family, established the lecture series through KU Endowment in memory of her husband, Thomas Galloway, who died in 2007. Thomas Galloway was the founding chair of the graduate program in urban planning in KU’s School of Architecture, Design and Planning, where he was a professor from 1971 to 1980.

As a professor, Thomas Galloway encouraged his students to deepen their understanding of the present by studying social, cultural, economical, environmental, ideological and philosophical entities. He charged his students to go out into the world and change it with a sense of responsibility and humility.

After leaving KU, Galloway held a faculty position at the University of Rhode Island. He later served as dean and professor in the College of Design at Iowa State University. In 1992, he was named dean of the College of Architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Galloway was well-known for establishing partnerships with Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Architecture de Paris LaVillette in France and the Shenyang Technological University in China. He chaired a team that reviewed a new College of Engineering and Design at the University of Abu Dhabi and served as an urban planning consultant to the Sheik.

During his career, Galloway was honored academically and professionally. He was listed among the “30 Leaders Who Bridge Practice and Education” in America’s Best Architecture and Design Schools, published in the 2005 edition of Design Intelligence, and was named a Lexus Leader of the Arts by Public Broadcasting Atlanta.

KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management foundation for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment was the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.