17th Annual Arthur Rosenblatt Memorial Lecture: Tom Kundig

Please note that in-person tickets are now sold out, but Zoom tickets are still available.

The Arthur M. Rosenblatt Memorial Lecture on Museum Design is an AIANY signature event organized each year by the Cultural Facilities Committee. This year the committee is honored to host Tom Kundig of the Seattle- and New York-based firm Olson Kundig, in person at the Center for Architecture, to present his work. Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA, is a principal, owner, and founder of Olson Kundig—a collaborative global design practice whose work expands the context of built and natural landscapes. Over the past three decades, Kundig has received some of the world’s highest design honors, from a National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum to an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Known for his contextual approach to design, his buildings are a direct response to place, often serving as a backdrop to the built, cultural, or natural landscapes that surround them. Kundig will provide an overview of his work at The Burke Museum, The Bo Bartlett Center at Columbus State University, and the Tacoma Art Museum (Haub Gallery and Benaroya Wing)—sharing his thoughts on museum design and the dialogue between art and place.

Speakers:
Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA, Principal, Owner, and Founder, Olson Kundig; University Studio Critic and John G. Williams Distinguished Professor, Fay Jones School of Architecture

Moderator:
Mark Rozzo, Author and Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair

About the Speakers:
Tom Kundig, FAIA, RIBA, is a graduate of the University of Washington, where he recently received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Architecture. Kundig regularly serves on design juries and lectures around the world, and has been a university studio critic throughout the United States and in Japan, including at Harvard University, the University of Oregon in Kyoto, and the University of Arkansas where he served as the John G. Williams Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture. His award-winning work has been exhibited at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, Istanbul Design Biennial, Syracuse University, and at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. In 2011, he was the sole North American architect chosen to represent the continent in an exhibit at TOTO GALLERY MA in Tokyo, Japan, where he also served as a visiting design critic in Kyoto.

Mark Rozzo is the author of the cultural history Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles (Ecco, 2022), a national bestseller. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair (where he previously served as deputy editor), and has also been a contributor at The New Yorker and a columnist at The Los Angeles Times Book Review. His essays, criticism, and profiles have appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Oxford American, The Washington Post, Esquire, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Air Mail, and other publications. As a musician, he has released albums with various bands and has created music for TV and films, including Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, and soundtracks for Audible.com. He teaches nonfiction writing at Columbia University and provided the essay for Tom Kundig’s 2020 book, Working Title.