Dear Alumni and Friends of GSD Architecture,

Greetings from Cambridge, where spring has finally warmed the air and we have just completed the 150th year of architectural instruction at Harvard. I am happy to be in touch with you during my second year as Chair of the Department of Architecture, and at the celebratory end of a challenging semester. I look forward to forging new bonds and connecting with the incredible members of our GSD community at several upcoming events:

As I reflect on this academic year, I am most proud of our forward-thinking students and faculty and of the progress we have made on several fronts, especially in these challenging times. As I will share below, the department has worked together to develop robust learning opportunities for the next generation of architects.

Architectural Dialogues

In 2018, GSD’s Senior Loeb Scholar, the late Bruno Latour, lectured in our Piper Auditorium on “gaiapolitics” and proposed a framework for rethinking geopolitics in this moment of the Anthropocene. While not directly about the subject of design, his lecture was riveting—and prescient—in describing the interconnectedness of three conditions that undergird many predicaments that affect architecture today: deregulation, the explosion of inequalities, and the expansion of climate change denial. Events like Latour’s lecture broaden our intellectual horizons. One of my key initiatives as Chair has been to continue and deepen this long tradition of seeding discourse by developing curricular and extracurricular dialogues that bring faculty, students, and experts into conversation. We are eager to debate the latest knowledge on local and global challenges and the ways in which they impact the discipline of architecture.

The Core Colloquium, new this year, brings together several faculty members and guest speakers each week to lecture on a common theme. These “curated conversations” then become the basis for discussion among students across the MArch Core studios and the department as a whole. This semester, we began with “On the Making of an Architect” and concluded with “On Repair.” Under excellent curatorial direction led by Elle Gerdeman MArch ’14, the Colloquium introduced topics such as embodied carbon, materiality, resilience, and machine learning, among other timely subjects.

Additionally, the department’s lecture series, _positions, has featured another robust lineup of speakers. This series asks architects to articulate their “position” within the field, framed not as a singular or static vision, but as an evolving and contrapuntal discourse (proposition, imposition, supposition, etc.) to unearth what has informed their thinking. At the final event of the year, students heard from a roundtable of impressive practitioners—Rahul Mehrotra MAUD ’87, Toshiko Mori, Sharon Johnston MArch ’95, and Rocio Crosetto Brizzio—who spoke “off the record” about their “First Projects.” Participants generously shared how these early projects launched their practices, modeling how work, mentors, and situations contribute to developing a unique voice within design.

The Department of Architecture’s public lecture program continues to attract a very strong following and present the work of esteemed practitioners. Both Sean Godsell and Dorte Mandrup delivered Kenzō Tange lectures, and the year culminated with Kengo Kuma delivering the John Hejduk Soundings Lecture. All public lectures are archived online and represent a wonderful cohort of speakers: a lecture by Minsuk Cho, “Notes on Time,” organized his oeuvre into a series of provocations about time in architecture. Another highlight was when Eric Höweler delivered his inaugural lecture as tenured faculty, describing the relationship between pedagogy and practice.

In the GSD’s inaugural podcast, “Talking Practice,” which I began several years ago, I interview architects on how and why they practice. This year we released two new episodes: Pier Vittorio Aureli of Dogma and Sheila O’Donnell of O’Donnell + Tuomey. Both architects also delivered insightful lectures for our community, and in these interviews, we expanded on the ideas that they shared while visiting with us. I recently learned that the podcast has reached more than 165,000 downloads, and I thank many of you for tuning in!

Core and Option Studio Themes

The Core studios, which are for many the flagship of the GSD, continually respond to current conditions while offering the highest level of professional training. We are committed to the education of the architect, strengthening the discipline’s foundations while expanding knowledge in risk-taking directions to serve our present and future. This year, MArch I Core studios explored topics from form-making to building integration and systems and from site potential to collective urban living, often while also confronting the changing climate. It was an exciting year of creative production, testing design through a wide range of incredible models, drawings, and presentations.

This year, our department offered 19 of the school’s 39 Option Studios, each of which delved into design thinking on timely and consequential themes. The innovative, rigorous design challenges in this group of advanced electives contribute to the consistent preeminence of the GSD’s architecture program. Many studios were taught by faculty members who are also renowned architects from around the world.

Both of this year’s visiting Kenzō Tange Design Critics taught studios responding architecturally to today’s urgent challenges of climate change and urbanization. In the fall, Sean Godsell’s studio explored vernacular design techniques for mitigating extreme heat by using rural Australia as a case study. In the spring, Dorte Mandrup brought students to Copenhagen to explore inventive architectural responses to the post-industrial coastal city and the topic of upcycling.

The focus on novel building materials also was explored by several studios on sustainable post-carbon materials, e.g., hempcrete, loam, earth, and stone. A studio using biogenic and geogenic materials, taught by Jeremy Ficca MArch ’00, was featured in the GSD News. These investigations were complemented by studios on strategies for countering resource extraction, such as adaptive/creative reuse and off-site manufacturing. George Legendre MArch ’94 taught the inaugural Nambu Family Design Studio, “The Future of Work,” which investigated the potentialities of off-site manufacturing for an island in Japan, Awaji-Shima.

Several studios explored new models of practice through technological advances, including the impact of AI on architecture. Professor Scott Cohen MArch ’85, for instance, paired with Panagiotis Michalatos to use machine learning tools for a joint architecture and real estate studio, entitled “Central London Montage,” with the goal of transforming existing urban conditions through renovation, addition, and new construction to support a hybrid program.

In support of our curricular strengths and initiatives, the GSD hired several new faculty members. Additional information about the three new Architecture faculty—Assistant Professor Iman S. Fayyad MArch ’16, Assistant Professor Elisa Iturbe, and Assistant Professor in Practice Angela Pang MArch ’02—appeared in The Harvard Crimson. Also this year, through internal promotion, architect Eric Höweler became a tenured professor and Sean Canty MArch ’14 became an associate professor. Beyond directing the MArch I program, Eric is now co-leading the design process, through the Harvard Legacy & Slavery Initiative, for a memorial to the people whose labor helped build our campus. Sean is coordinator of the Core 1 studio; he recently taught an Option Studio addressing the housing crisis in San Francisco, and has won numerous design awards with his practice, Studio Sean Canty (SSC).

Exhibitions

This semester, the Druker Design Gallery in Gund Hall featured an exhibition curated by GSD architectural historian Christine Smith, “Envisioning Cluny: Kenneth Conant and Representations of Medieval Architecture, 1872–2025.” The opening events for that exhibition included a fantastic concert of medieval music by the Blue Heron vocal ensemble as an a cappella accompaniment to the exhibition. The installation also presented historical drawings, photographs, plaster casts, and videos documenting the efforts of architectural historian Kenneth Conant (who taught at the GSD from 1920 until 1954) and Professor Smith to bring the marvels of medieval architecture to our students.

The department’s contribution to the Fall 2024 Druker Design Gallery programming included the exhibition “Architecture as an Instruction-Based Art,” curated by Professor Farshid Moussavi MArch ’91. This diverse array of construction coordination drawings from studio practices around the world featured the work of many accomplished architects, including several GSD alumni.

Looking Ahead

This summer, if you are heading to Venice for the Architecture Biennale, the GSD has posted information about affiliates’ exhibited projects online. (If you have a project at the Biennale and do not yet see the information about it, please contact our Communications Office, [email protected].) GSD alumni, students, and faculty members consistently expand the boundaries of our field, as evidenced by the department’s abundant representation at this year’s Venice Biennale.

Looking forward to the coming year, we recently hosted an Open House for students admitted to the Department of Architecture, and we are happy to report a record yield on prospective students. While our future enrollees were excited about the upcoming year, some raised understandable concerns about what the future holds. We are following the matter of international student enrollment closely, as its impact on the GSD is still unfolding as I write. The Department of Architecture, like the GSD at large, has long taken great pride in its international vision; given the interdependency and connections between local and global design thinking, we are also proud of our increasingly expansive scope. This has been one of my goals as Chair, and I affirm that I continue to uphold this vision. I will remain in close collaboration with GSD Dean Sarah Whiting, who has joined Harvard President Alan Garber in “condemning the government’s illegal action against our school.” Meanwhile, please know that I treasure international students and alumni as essential members of the GSD community who enrich the education we offer here with an abundance of experiences and perspectives.

As I have been assuring our current and future students of their welcome at Harvard, I have been grateful to be able to emphasize the unwavering strength of the GSD alumni community. You are part of a wonderful network of people that will ever remain an unparalleled and unshakeable resource. I am consistently impressed by the remarkable achievements and contributions to the built environment by distinguished Department of Architecture graduates around the globe. I hope to learn more about your current endeavors at the upcoming AIA alumni reception and other events, and I deeply appreciate your staying in touch with your alma mater.

When I roamed the trays during final reviews, I saw today’s architecture students cementing friendships, exchanging design ideas, and debating pressing issues in our discipline and allied fields. Another worthy GSD cohort is ready to join you as professionals and as alumni.

Sending you best wishes and good health!

Sincerely,
Grace

Grace La AB ’92, MArch ’95
Professor and Chair of Architecture
Principal, LA DALLMAN