The Venice Biennale: Louise Braverman, FAIA, and Martha Thorne

*This event is occurring as a live webinar on June 4, 2021 at 1:00 PM EDT / 18:00 BST / 19:00 CET. Registrants will be emailed a link to access the program.*

This special event is part of the Cocktails & Conversation series, a sequence of dialogues about design that joins an architect with a critic, journalist, or architectural historian to discuss current architectural topics and process.

New York-based architect Louise Braverman has participated in the renowned Venice Architectural Biennale since 2012, and her work is part of the 2021 Biennale opening on May 22nd with the theme “How Will We Live Together?”. In this conversation with Martha Thorne, former Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Braverman will reflect on the impact of the Biennale on her practice and the shaping of exhibitions and installations responding to global themes.

The session will be introduced by Sophia Gruzdys, AIA, Vice President/President Elect of AIA’s Continental Europe Chapter. Questions from participants will be fielded by Dale B. Cohen, an alumna of the Yale School of Architecture and member of AIA New York’s Architectural Dialogue Committee.

The formal program will begin at 1:00 PM EDT, but we will be starting at 12:30 PM EDT for an informal open networking session during which our guests and attendees can openly converse. Please join us at 12:30 PM if you can.

Speakers:
Louise Braverman, FAIA, Founder, Louise Braverman Architect
Martha Thorne, Dean, IE School of Architecture & Design; former Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize

About the Speakers:

Louise Braverman FAIA, is an award-winning architect with a deep passion for creating sustainable architecture of art + conscience. A graduate of the Yale School of Architecture, she established her practice, Louise Braverman Architect, in 1991 with the underlying belief that the power of architecture can positively affect the way in which we live. Recent projects that embrace diverse communities include Centro de Arts Nadir Afonso, an art museum in Boticas, Portugal that encourages public participation with art, Village Health Works Staff Housing, an off-the-grid dormitory in the post-genocide village of Kigutu, Burundi, the Derfner Museum, an art museum in Riverdale that facilitates multi-generational engagement and Poets House, a transparent library and learning center in Battery Park City that beckons all voices of poetry to come inside. Her work has been recognized locally and globally, resulting in invitations to present the work of her firm at five consecutive Venice Architecture Biennales, both at international exhibits and at the United States Pavilion. Her experience creating these environmental installations in Venice has added insight to the evolution of the built work of her firm, establishing an ongoing reciprocal relationship between architectural concept and architectural reality.

Martha Thorne is Dean of IE School of Architecture & Design, Madrid/Segovia, Spain. She recently stepped down as Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a position she held since 2005. Her main interests center on the contemporary city and how architecture, design, and urbanism can contribute to sustainability and resilience; and how architecture and design education can evolve in both content and pedagogy to be more relevant for today’s challenges. Thorne received a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She undertook additional studies at the London School of Economics.