Columbia's Joan Ockman is UB's 2007 Clarkson Chair in Architecture

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- "Brilliant, incisive and unafraid" is how noted architect and urban designer Marilyn Jordan Taylor describes Joan Ockman, the 2007 Will and Nan Clarkson Chair in Architecture at the University at Buffalo.

Ockman, a distinguished author, practitioner and critic, is adjunct associate professor of architecture in the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and directs Columbia's Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, which promotes scholarship in architecture, urbanism and landscape.

She will be in residence at the UB School of Architecture and Planning from April 2-7, working with students in studio and participating in a series of daily workshops and seminars.

On April 4 at 5:30 p.m. she will deliver the 2007 Clarkson Lecture in 147 Diefendorf Hall on the UB South (Main Street) Campus. The talk, which will be free and open to the public, will be followed by a reception.

Brian Carter, dean of the UB School, says Ockman was selected as the 2007 Clarkson Chair in Architecture by the faculty because of her contributions both to practice and research.

"Joan Ockman is a leading figure in the architectural world," he says.

"Her experience working in practice alongside Richard Meier and Peter Eisenman and subsequent ground-breaking program of research and publications that she has advanced at the Temple Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture connect vital territories of design."

Mehrdad Hadighi, the chair of the UB Department of Architecture adds, "The opportunity for our students in the architecture program at UB to work closely with a scholar and architectural practitioner of international standing is a vital and exciting one"

Ockman, who, according to Hadighi, "illustrates the extraordinary influence of a woman who is clearly dedicated to expanding critical thinking in architecture," has made major contributions to her field through her books, conference programs, professional practice and teaching career.

She has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 1985 and has held visiting professorships at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, the University of Pennsylvania, the Centre de Cultura Contemporànea de Barcelona and Yale University School of Architecture. She has also been a fellow at the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University.

In 2003 the American Institute of Architects (AIA) bestowed upon her Institute Honors for Collaborative Achievement, awarded to allied professionals, clients, organizations, architect teams, and others "who have had a beneficial influence on, or advanced the architectural profession."

Ockman is the author or editor of several highly regarded books in her field, among them "Out of Ground Zero: Case Studies in Urban Reinvention" (Prestl Verlag, 2002), which was named the best architecture book of 2002 by The New York Times. Her 1993 book "Architecture Culture 1943-1968: A Documentary Anthology" (Rizzoli), now in its third edition, was named Book of the Year by The New York Times and the AIA International Architecture Book Awards Program.

Her essays and reviews have appeared in Artforum, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Assemblage, ANY, Architecture, Metropolis, Arquitectura Viva, A+U, Arch+, Design Book Review, Women's Review of Books, Harvard Design Magazine and Oppositions, among others. They are included in a number of anthologies, including "Autonomy and Ideology: Positioning an Architectural Avant-Garde in North America," "The Sex of Architecture," "Architecture and Film," "The Urban Lifeworld," and "Architecture of the Everyday."