The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) announces its Spring 2024 schedule of public programs and exhibitions, many of which offer interdisciplinary perspectives on history, memory, and the natural world. Writer and professor Christina Sharpe raises foundational questions for a world in crisis in her talk “What Could a Vessel Be?”, part of her ongoing consideration of the conceptual and material nature of vessels (February 13). Educator and historian Lauret Savoy discusses settlement, race, migration, and natural history in America in her lecture (March 26), while architect, composer, and musician Timothy Archambault interweaves reflections on architecture and Indigenous music traditions in his Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture (April 11). Presenting his Wheelwright Prize research project, “Being Shellfish: Architectures of Intertidal Cohabitation,” Daniel Fernández Pascual, co-founder of Cooking Sections, examines the intertidal zone and its potential to advance architectural knowledge (March 5).
New ecological perspectives are central to this spring’s programs. With keynote talks by Anita Berrizbeitia and Ned Friedman, the conference Forest Futures: Will the Forest Save Us All? (February 15–16) brings together leading researchers and practitioners to discuss innovations in urban forestry that can benefit public health and environmental justice while mitigating the impacts of climate change. A related exhibition in Druker Design Gallery at the GSD surveys leading-edge forest management projects (January 25–March 31). Elizabeth K. Meyer explores the intersection of landscape architecture and urban planning in the Daniel Urban Kiley Lecture, “Unsettling Sustainability: Landscape Laboratories as Experimental and Experiential Grounds” (February 29).
Additional program highlights include architectural historian Mario Carpo presenting “Generative AI, Imitation, Style, and the Eternal Return of Precedent” for the annual John Hejduk Soundings Lecture (March 28), as well as presentations by architect Marlon Blackwell (February 8) and this year’s Senior Loeb Scholar Malkit Shoshan (February 27). The fourth annual Mayors Imagining the Just City Symposium (April 19) concludes the semester’s program.
The complete public program calendar appears below and can be viewed on Harvard GSD’s events calendar. Please visit Harvard GSD’s home page to sign up to receive periodic emails about the School’s public programs, exhibitions, and other news.
Spring 2024 Public Program
Forest Futures
Exhibition
Druker Design Gallery
January 25–March 31
Marlon Blackwell, “Radical Practice”
Lecture
February 8, 6:30pm
Christina Sharpe, “What Could a Vessel Be?”
Lecture
February 13, 6:30pm
“Forest Futures: Will the Forest Save Us All?”
Conference
February 15–16
Malkit Shoshan, “Designing Within Conflict”
Senior Loeb Scholar Lecture
February 27, 6:30pm
Elizabeth K. Meyer, “Unsettling Sustainability: Landscape Laboratories as Experimental and Experiential Grounds” Daniel Urban Kiley Lecture
February 29, 6:30pm
Daniel Fernández Pascual, “Being Shellfish: Architectures of Intertidal Cohabitation”
Wheelwright Prize Lecture
March 5, 6:30pm
Debra Spark, “Falling Out: Narrating the Neutra-Schindler Story”
Lecture
March 7, 12:30pm
Frances Loeb Library
Jack Halberstam, “Trans* Anarchitectures 1975 to 2020”
International Womxn’s Day Keynote Address
March 7, 6:30pm
Malkit Shoshan and Womxn in Design, “Designing Within Conflict: Building for Peace”
Senior Loeb Scholar Conversation
March 8, 12:30pm
Frances Loeb Library
Petra Blaisse,“Art Applied, Inside Outside”
In Conversation with Grace La, Niels Olsen, and Fredi Fischli
Margaret McCurry Lectureship in the Design Arts
March 19, 6:30pm
Margot Kushel, “The Toxic Problem of Poverty + Housing Costs: Lessons from New Landmark Research About Homelessness”
John T. Dunlop Lecture
March 21, 6:30pm
Lauret Savoy, “Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape”
Lecture
March 26, 6:30pm
Pedro Gadanho, “Priorities Reversed: From Climate Agnosticism to Ecological Activism”
Lecture
March 27, 12:30pm
Frances Loeb Library
Mario Carpo, “Generative AI, Imitation, Style, and the Eternal Return of Precedent”
John Hejduk Soundings Lecture
March 28, 6:30pm
Joel Sanders, “From Stud to Stalled!: Inclusive Design through a Queer Lens”
Lecture
March 29, 12:30pm
Frances Loeb Library
Dan Stubbergaard, “City as a Resource–Cobe’s Current Works on the City”
Lecture
April 9, 6:30pm
Timothy Archambault, “The Silent Echo: Architectures of the Void”
Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture
April 11, 6:30pm
Garnette Cadogan, “‘The Ground Is All Memoranda’: Walking as Register, Responsibility, and Reenchantment”
Lecture
April 16, 6:30pm
“Mayors Imagining the Just City: Volume 4”
Symposium
April 19, 1:00pm
All programs take place in Piper Auditorium, are open to the public, and will be simultaneously streamed to the GSD’s website, unless otherwise noted.
Registration is not required, unless otherwise noted. Please see individual event pages for full details and the most up-to-date information.