Leading Spanish Architect to Exhibit, Lecture at IIT
Renown Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza will spend a week on the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in April, as the College of Architecture’s Spring 2003 Morgenstern Visiting Critic. Campo Baeza will serve as a guest lecturer on campus; participate in a symposium on architecture and present an exhibit of his designs entitled “Light is More,” at S.R. Crown Hall, home of the College of Architecture.
Campo Baeza, a native of Valladolid, Spain, received his Ph.D. in Architecture in 1982 from the University of Madrid. He became chairman and professor of design there in 1986. Campo Baeza has also taught at universities in Zurich, Switzerland; Dublin, Ireland; Naples, Italy and at the famed Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany.
As an architect, Campo Baeza has built numerous public buildings and private homes in Spain. He most recently completed the headquarters of the Caja General de Ahorros de Granada. His work has been exhibited widely. Three books or monographs have also been published about Campo Baeza’s architecture and featured in most major architectural magazines in the world.
In partnership with Instituto Cervantes, IIT will host “Light is More,” an exhibition of the works and projects of Campo Baeza, April 2-May 12, 2003 in the North Core of S.R. Crown Hall, a national historic landmark, designed by Mies van der Rohe. Light is probably the feature that best characterizes the architecture of Campo Baeza, above and beyond his embrace of Mies’ dictum, “less is more,” that so fittingly discloses Campo Baeza’s search to achieve a maximum effect with the minimum use of elements.
Campo Baeza will also participate in a College of Architecture symposium, entitled: “Architecture: Where Do We Stand?” Friday, April 4, 2003 at 5 p.m. at S.R. Crown Hall. A range of sophisticated architecture work has emerged from very different philosophies. What does it mean? Is one more valid than the other? Is there synergetic interaction? What are the primary shaping forces and what is the future?
These and other questions will be examined, in cooperation with the audience, by a panel consisting of: Campo Baeza; Kenneth Frampton, architect, theorist, well known author and Professor at Columbia University; Peter McCleary, structural engineer, long time collaborator with Kahn and LeRicholais and professor at the University of Pennsylvania; Dean Donna Robertson, IIT College of Architecture and Peter Land, IIT Professor of Architecture.
The seminar will begin with each participant presenting a summary personal view of “Where Do We Stand,” to be followed by the debate. The symposium is sponsored through the generous support of The Morgenstern Family Fund.
Founded in 1890, IIT is a Ph.D.-granting technological university awarding degrees in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, as well as architecture, psychology, design, business and law. IIT’s interprofessional, technology-focused curriculum prepares the university’s 6,200 students for leadership roles in an increasingly complex and culturally diverse global workplace.
