Brunner Recipient Roundtable: Post-World War II Architecture in Europe

AIA New York and the Center for Architecture host a panel discussion with recipients of the Arnold W. Brunner Grant, which supports advanced studies in any area of architectural investigation that contribute to the knowledge, teaching, or practice of the art and science of architecture. This evening’s talk will welcome 2019 recipient Richard W. Hayes, AIA, and 2020 recipient Lynnette Widder, moderated by Julia Walker, Associate Professor of Art History and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Binghamton University. The discussion will dive into the research of the two Brunner recipients, which largely focuses on post-World War II architectural practice in Europe.

Brunner Recipients:
Richard W. Hayes, AIA, Architect and Architectural Historian
Lynnette Widder, Associate Professor in Sustainability Management, Columbia University

Moderator:
Julia Walker, Associate Professor of Art History, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Associate Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Binghamton University

Richard W. Hayes is an architect and architectural historian, educated at Columbia and Yale Universities. His publications include The Yale Building Project: The First 40 Years  (Yale, 2007), a comprehensive history of the influential educational program. Hayes has also published extensively on 19th-century British architecture, including a chapter in  E.W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer , edited by Susan Weber Soros (Yale, 1999). Hayes was a visiting fellow at the University of Cambridge in 2009 and 2013. In a career combining practice with scholarship, Hayes has received grants and awards from the American Institute of Architects, the American Architectural Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the Paul Mellon Centre, the European Architectural History Network, New York State Council on the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. He currently works for Alexander Gorlin Architects.

Lynnette Widder is Associate Professor in Sustainability Management at Columbia University. Her current research considers postwar architecture and urbanism in West Germany, including its relevance to rebuilding after climate change and war in the 21st century. Widder is the author of Year Zero to Economic Miracle: Hans Schwippert and Sept Ruf in Postwar West German Building Culture (gta Press, 2022) and co-authored Architecture LIVE Projects: Pedagogy into Practice (Routledge, 2014) and Ira Rakatansky: As Modern as Tomorrow (William Stout, 2010). Her writing has appeared in Daidalos, Bauwelt, Architecture, Manifest, Kritische Berichte, the Journal of Industrial Ecology, and The Social Science Journal.  She has received funding from the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Architecture, the Graham Foundation, the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), Fulbright, and the UN Development Programme in Guinea; and has held fellowships from the Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris and MacDowell. Her work with aardvarchitecture has been published in the US, Europe, China and Australia.

Julia Walker is Associate Professor of Art History and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Binghamton University, where she is also Associate Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities. She received her MA and PhD in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in modern and contemporary architecture and theory. Her teaching and research focus on contemporary architecture culture with particular emphasis on the ways in which architectural ideas, forms, and materials from the early years of the twentieth century are absorbed and transformed in contemporary practice. These questions are especially charged in the projects that comprise her first book, Berlin Contemporary: Architecture and Politics After 1990 (Bloomsbury, 2021), which looks at the government architecture and urban planning of Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the official reunification of Germany. Her second book project, currently underway, is tentatively titled Why They Left: Women After Architecture, and recovers the histories of women who studied and practiced as architects before leaving or being pressured out of the field. Walker has also published articles on the architecture of Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and Daniel Libeskind, among others. Her work has been supported by the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, the Society of Architectural Historians, the Walter Benjamin Kolleg of the University of Bern, and the Ellyn Uram Kaschak Institute for Social Justice for Women and Girls.

This event is offered in person, COVID-19 vaccinations and face masks are strongly encouraged for all visitors. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.