Athens, Ga. – Architect and bestselling author Witold Rybczynski will deliver the 2010-11 HGOR Lecture entitled “Makeshift Metropolis” on Thursday, Nov. 11 at 5 p.m. in Room 150 of the Miller Learning Center. This lecture is part of the University of Georgia College of Environment and Design’s 2010-2011 Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.It is free and open to the public. Immediately following the lecture, a book signing will be held in the MLC Reading Room.
The lecture will explore the influence that old and new planning theories have had on American urbanism in the 20th century in the context of successes and failures driven by the actual market-city dwellers.Though affected by architects, planners, legislators and mayors, the 21st century city is also being shaped by mixed-use developments, downtown living, heterogeneity, density, and the demands of ordinary consumers.
An authority on architecture and urbanism, Rybczynski has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and Slate, and is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books and academic journal articles on urbanism, architecture, housing, and technology.Titles include Home and A Clearing in the Distance, a biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, for which Rybczynski was awarded the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. He is the recipient of the National Building Museum’s 2007 Vincent Scully Prize and currently holds the Martin & Margy Meyerson Professorship of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania. For more information on Rybczynski and his work, see http://www.witoldrybczynski.com.
The UGA College of Environment and Design’s annual HGOR Lecture is sponsored by Hughes, Good, O’Leary and Ryan, an Atlanta-based firmspecializing in balancing social, economic, and environmental considerations in workplace, campus, community, and urban design.The HGOR lecture addresses themes of landscape architecture, planning and public policy focusing on leadership and long-term critical design issues with broad implications for business, professional practice and the economy.For more information, see www.ced.uga.edu.