Dean’s Letter

This is my first Constructs dispatch as the Edward P. Bass Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. The endowment of the deanship—among the largest gifts in the School’s history—provides permanent support for our mission and goals. I am grateful to Sasha Bass, a member of the Dean’s Council, for spearheading this group gift and honoring Ed’s involvement with YSoA in such a meaningful way.

We had a great series of events last semester, including the first two installments of the “Mind and Space” colloquium, organized by Yoko Kawai, which continues this semester. We presented lectures by Issa Diabaté (MArch ’95), Shayari de Silva (BA ’11, MArch ’16), Amélia Brandão Costa and Rodrigo da Costa Lima, Francesca Hughes, Rocky Chin (MCP ’71) and Andrei Harwell (MArch ’06), Mae-ling Lokko, Sue Ann Kahn, Josephine Minutillo, Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen, Dominic Leong, and Ma Yansong (MArch ’02). Geoffrey Bawa: It Is Essential to Be There, curated by de Silva, was the first major exhibition on the Sri Lankan architect’s work in North America and the premier presentation of drawings from his archives.

Faculty teaching advanced studios this semester include William Henry Bishop Visiting Professor Sunil Bald, Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice Tatiana Bilbao, Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor Chris T. Cornelius, Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Architecture Fellow Antonia Devine (MArch ’13) with visiting professor Billie Tsien (BA ’71) and visiting critic Justin Beal (BA ’01), Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor Akihisa Hirata, Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professors Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi, Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor Benedetta Tagliabue, and Robert A.M. Stern Visiting Professor Julia Treese.

The Spring exhibition is The Tuskegee Chapel: Paul Rudolph X Fry & Welch, which explores the underrecognized collaboration behind this extraordinary building. Also on display through February, the student-curated exhibition A Repository of Black Knowledge draws from the network that has coalesced around the new Yale Black Architecture Alumni group.

Our Spring event series includes lectures by exhibition curator Helen Brown Bechtel (MArch ’10) and her collaborator from Tuskegee University, Dr. Kwesi Daniels; Charmaine Chua, an interdisciplinary scholar of logistics; visiting faculty Benedetta Tagliabue, Kabage Karanja, and Stella Mutegi; documentary filmmaker Sven Blume; YSoA critic and landscape architect Beka Sturges; world-famous Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari; and architect Liu Thai-Ker (MCP ’65), former master planner of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore.

The School is hosting three symposia this semester. The first is “Building a Planetary Solution: Regenerative Architectural Strategies for a Planet in Crisis,” organized by Alan Organschi (MArch ’88), on February 20–22. The conference imagines a future where the making of global buildings and cities—instead of continuing to deplete and degrade our planet’s natural ecosystem—becomes a force to incentivize environmental restoration, reverse climate change, and enhance biodiversity. On March 27–28 Craig Buckley will convene “Discrepant Circulations,” a symposium focused on movement through and around buildings, cohosted by the Department of the History of Art and the Yale Macmillan Center. Finally, on April 11–12 Phil Bernstein (BA ’79, MArch ’83) and Luis C.deBaca will moderate “Supply Chain Equity: Modern Slavery, Architecture, and Construction,” which aims to reckon with the ongoing legacy of chattel slavery in the built environment, as well as the persistence of modern slavery, particularly in material supply chains.

The latest issue of Perspecta, no. 57, “Archival Ferment,” edited by Alex Kim (MED ’21, PhD ’27), Sarah Kim (MArch ’23), Brian Orser (MArch ’22), and M. C. Overholt (MED ’21), is due this spring. Two new books published by Yale University Press celebrate the intellectual accomplishments of former YSoA faculty. Notes on Peter Eisenman: The Gradual Vanishing of Architecture, edited by Surry Schlabs (BA ’99, MArch ’03, PhD ’17), brings together a distinguished group of architects and historians, teachers and students, and friends and colleagues of Eisenman’s to consider his many extraordinary contributions to the architectural discourse and frame his legacy. Stanley Tigerman: Drawing on the Ineffable, edited by George Papamattheakis (MED ’23), presents previously unpublished drawings by Tigerman (MArch ’65), including stunning examples of Post-Modern hand-drawn architectural representations, and offers readers a deeper understanding of the work process and significance of drawing in his office.

The extraordinary teaching legacy of professor emeritus and former acting dean Alec Purves is being recognized with a new scholarship in his honor. This fund was initiated with a gift by Phillip Bernstein and Nancy Alexander, along with additional support from many of his former students and colleagues. A Peter Eisenman Scholarship was also created by a group gift, organized by his longtime friend Robert Livesey. On the second anniversary of Alexander Garvin’s passing, the Alexander Garvin Urban Studies Resource Fund has been launched under the leadership of James Schroder (BA ’03) and a multigenerational committee comprised of Anne Goulet (MArch ’00), Con Howe (BA ’72), Matt Jacobson (BA ’98), Meredith Kane (BA ’76), Richard Peiser (BA ’70), and Andrew Weiner (BA ’72). We are also celebrating our first two scholarships named for graduating cohorts, endowed by the Classes of 1989 and 1996, which I hope will become a new tradition for reunions. I am thankful for your support to these funds as well as the Dean’s Endowed Scholarship Fund, the Annual Fund, and our many other scholarship and program funds.

—Deborah Berke, FAIA, LEED AP
Edward P. Bass Dean and J.M. Hoppin Professor of the Yale School of Architecture