Morning Leadership Talk: Francine Houben

Please join the AIANY Women in Architecture Committee for the Archtober installment of their Morning Leadership Talk series. Featured speaker Francine Houben, Founding Partner and Creative Director of Mecanoo, will discuss her career and recent projects.

Speaker:
Francine Houben, Founding Partner and Creative Director, Mecanoo

About the Speaker:

Francine Houben is Founding Partner and Creative Director of Mecanoo architecten. Her work ranges from theatres, museums, and libraries to neighborhoods, housing, and parks. Each design is founded on the observation of people, location, culture, and climate. This analytic framework amounts to designs that respond to current needs yet are also prepared for (un)predictable changes. With her practice, she has gained international acclaim. Houben holds Honorary Fellowships from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), and was granted lifelong membership to the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In 2015, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands presented her the prestigious Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prize for her entire oeuvre. Houben was professor of mobility aesthetics at Delft University of Technology and has also taught at Harvard and Yale. As curator of the First International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam, she brought the theme of the aesthetics of mobility to the forefront of international design consciousness. Houben holds Honorary Doctorates from Utrecht University and Université de Mons. Selected works include Delft University of Technology Library (Delft, 1997), La Llotja Theatre and Congress Centre (Lleida, 2008), the Library of Birmingham (Birmingham, 2013), the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building (Boston, 2015), and National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Taiwan, 2018). She recently completed the renovation of the New York Public Library and Washington, DC’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, originally designed by Mies van der Rohe, both of which re-opened in 2020.

This event is offered virtually; you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.