Architect Peter Eisenman receives CCA award and will give a free public lecture on March 26

Architect and educator Peter Eisenman (Cornell B. Arch '55) will deliver a free public lecture titled "Architecture Matters," Wednesday, March 26, at 6:30 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall.

Eisenman

The lecture will follow a private ceremony in which Eisenman will be awarded the Distinguished Alumni Artist Award for 2002 from the Committee on the Arts and Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA). The award is a glass sculpture model of the university's McGraw Tower by artist Eric Hilton.

"As both an architect and educator, Eisenman has consistently argued that architecture is part of a larger cultural discourse," said Milton Curry, associate professor of architecture and CCA director. "He has always insisted that architecture is part of cultural studies, theory and criticism and that architecture is involved in constructing history, not just a result of history."

CCA also will present its 2002 Excellence in the Arts Award to co-winners and Cornell graduates Albert Pulido '02, creative writing, and Scott Pitek, B. Arch '02. Pitek's work titled "MVMT: Re-Presents" will be exhibited March 22-29 in the Tjaden Gallery in Tjaden Hall on campus. A public reception will be held March 25 at 7:30 p.m. in Tjaden.

Eisenman is principal architect at Eisenman Architects, New York. In 1980, after many years of teaching, writing and producing theoretical work, he established his professional practice to focus exclusively on building. He has designed a wide range of prototypical projects, including large-scale housing and urban design projects, facilities for educational institutions and private houses.

Eisenman designed the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts and Fine Arts Library at Ohio State University, completed in 1989, and was the recipient of a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1993. His project for social housing at Checkpoint Charlie, at the Berlin Wall, was honored by the West German government, which featured it on a postage stamp commemorating the 750th anniversary of the city of Berlin. His office building for the Koizumi Sangyo Corp. headquarters in Tokyo received a 1991 National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. In 1993 the $65 million Greater Columbus Convention Center opened in Columbus, Ohio, and the $35 million Aronoff Center for Design and Art at the University of Cincinnati opened in 1996, both Eisenman creations.

Eisenman's current projects include a museum for the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences in New York City; a 68,000-seat multipurpose stadium for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals in Phoenix; a 48-story office tower on the Friedrichstraße in Berlin; a museum for digital art in Hsinchu, Taiwan; a 750,000-square-foot cultural complex in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, which includes a museum, library and an opera house; and the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.