Accomplished Chinese Architect to Speak at UB

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Yung Ho Chang, one of China's most accomplished and best-known contemporary architects, will present an illustrated lecture of his work and China's architectural renaissance at the University at Buffalo on Sept. 20.

His lecture, the second in the 2006 Fall Lecture Series presented by the UB School of Architecture and Planning, will take place at 5:30 pm in 301 Crosby Hall on the UB South (Main Street) Campus. It will be free, open to the public and followed by a reception.

The China-born, American-educated Chang, who has made an enormous mark on contemporary Chinese architectural practice and on architecture education here and abroad, cites such artistic pioneers as Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Hitchcock, Flann O'Brien and Alain Robbe-Grillet among his influences.

He founded the Graduate Center of Architecture at Peking University and, with his wife, architect Lijia Lu, founded Beijing's first independent architectural firm, Atelier FCJZ, or Feichang Jianzhu (which translates as "Unusual Architecture"), a practice he maintains while at MIT, where he currently directs the Department of Architecture.

Atelier FCJZ is a versatile firm and one of the hottest in China. It has a number of completed projects to its credit, including private residences, large- and small-scale museums, government buildings and installations at the Venice Biennale and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.

Chang, 49, the son of an architect, came to the U.S. in 1981 and received a bachelor's degree in environmental design from Ball State University and a master's degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984.

He since has taught at Berkeley, Rice University and Tongii University (Shanghai). In 2002 and 2003, he held the Kenzo Tange Chair at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and in 2004, the Eliel Saarinen Chair at the University of Michigan.

In May, Chang received an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a prize given to an American architect whose work is characterized by strong personal direction. His other awards, including the 2000 UNESCO Prize for the Promotion of the Arts.