Kleinman Named Chair Of UB Architecture Department

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Kent Kleinman, a designer with a distinguished international reputation in architectural design and design theory, has been named associate professor and chair of the Department of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning.

Kleinman comes to UB from the University of Michigan, where he was associate professor of architecture in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He has worked and written extensively in Europe and the U.S. and is the author of several books.

Kleinman describes himself as a man "with a passion for the built environment." Although not a preservationist in the strictest sense of the term, he considers buildings constructed in the past to be carriers of culture.

"A culture is inscribed in stones and forms of its built environment," Kleinman says. "For good or ill, these structures express the values of those who built them. We treat our older buildings with respect because they represent our cultural past. If we lose them, we lose part of who we are."

Kleinman says that one of the attractions of coming to UB is the city of Buffalo itself. "It has many impressive and intact physical structures, unlike many other cities -- Detroit, for example. Buffalo's great buildings may not be fully used or fully occupied, but they are of landmark value," he says.

Kleinman holds a master's degree in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, from which he also received a bachelor's degree summa cum laude in 1979.

Between 1986-95, he was a visiting professor or critic at Cornell University, the University of California at Berkley, the University of Michigan, and important architectural schools in Denmark, Austria and Germany.

A prominent author and editor in his field, Kleinman is working on "Notes on Almost Nothing," an assessment of two significant but under-documented buildings designed by Mies Van Der Rohe.