Diller to dally in Toronto

The John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design is pleased to welcome internationally renowned architect Elizabeth Diller, founding principal of the firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, to present the next bulthaup lecture in its 2011-2012 Public Lecture Series.

 

Known for her creative, unorthodox practice, which combines architecture with the visual and performing arts, Diller, with her partners Scofidio and Renfro, has been credited with changing the face of New York City. Recent work includes the widely-celebrated High Line — a linear urban park on an obsolete elevated railway stretching 1.5 miles through the New York neighbourhood of Chelsea — which received the Honor Award for Urban Design from the American Institute of Architects, among other accolades. Other key New York projects include the firm’s transformation of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

 

But Diller’s work goes well beyond re-imagining cultural buildings, obsolete infrastructure and creating spectacular new works of Architecture. Her firm’s many projects include a meat dress designed in 2006 (four years before Lady Gaga donned hers), and “Blur,” a temporary mid-lake installation commissioned for the 2003 Swiss Expo, which immersed visitors in a mist-cloud. More recently, Diller Scofidio and Renfro developed a dance piece in collaboration with Garry Stewart and the Australian Dance Theatre that investigated the concept of selfhood. A Professor of Architecture at Princeton University, Diller is also revered for her contributions to architectural theory and criticism. 

 

Diller and her firm have received widespread recognition for her work. In 2010, Fast Company named Diller Scofidio + Renfro the Most Innovative Design Firm and among the top 50 most innovative companies in the world. In 2009, Diller, along with her partner Ricardo Scofidio, made Time Magazine’s top 100 list of “The World’s Most Influential People.” Diller and Scofidio were also the first architects to receive the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the “Genius Grant.”

 

Diller is a fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other prestigious awards and honors received by Diller Scofidio + Renfro include the National Design Award from the Smithsonian, the Brunner Prize from the American Academy of the Arts and Letters, and an Obie for an off-Broadway theater production.

 

 

Part of the Daniels 2011-2012 Public Lecture Series, the bulthaup Lectures showcase an international array of some of the best and brightest in the fields of architecture, design, and sustainable urbanization. These lectures are part of a broader stream of talks, exhibitions, and symposia taking place at Daniels throughout the academic year, and part of a program being advanced by Dean, and Professor of Architecture and Urbanism, Richard Sommer to further discourse on how to better design and inhabit the built environment.

 

The faculty is grateful to bulthaup for their sponsorship of the 2011-2012 lectures. Lectures are open to the public, but as seating is limited, it is best to arrive early.