Eva Franch i Gilabert

April 18, 2018
6 pm - 7:30 pm
Hayes Hall 403

Eva Franch is an architect, curator, educator and lecturer of experimental forms of art and architectural practice. In 2004, she founded her solo practice OOAA (Office of Architectural Affairs) and since 2010 is the Chief Curator and Executive Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Franch specializes in the making of alternative architecture histories and futures.

Franch will deliver a lecture in four parts, presenting alternative models through a series of specific projects developed over the last 10 years, including OfficeUS, a global experiment in the making of architecture, history and work; Letters to the Mayor, an itinerant exhibition bringing architects closer to decision makers and vice versa; Competition of Competitions, a metadiscursive platform for reflection and critique; and World Wide Storefront, a digital platform to empower local communities globally and to produce new forms of knowledge transfer.

Franch is currently teaching at the Cooper Union School of Architecture and has taught at Columbia University GSAPP, the IUAV University of Venice, the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, and Rice University School of Architecture.  Franch has lectured internationally on art, architecture, and the importance of alternative practices in the construction and understanding of public life at educational and cultural institutions including the Royal College of Art and the Architecture Association in London, Arts Club of Chicago, Cooper Union and SVA in New York, Hong Kong University, IAAC in Barcelona, Izolatsia in Kiev, Kuwait University, San Francisco Art Institute, Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, University of Manitoba, UT Sidney, Oslo School of Architecture, Princeton University, SCI-Arc in Los Angeles , and Yale University among others.

In 2014 Franch, with the project OfficeUS, was selected by the US State Department to represent the United States Pavilion at the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale.

Franch has been part of international competition juries and member of several nominating and advisory boards including the Hong Kong Design Trust, Ideas City, the Wheelwright Prize, the European Cultural Foundation Princess Margriet Award, +Pool, and the YAP PS1-MoMA in New York among others.

Franch’s work has appeared in the form of articles and interviews in magazines, newspapers and publications around the world including AD, Architecture Record, Architectural Review, Arquine, Bauwelt, Domus, Dwell, El Pais, New York Times, Metropolis, MOUSE, Pin-UP, Rolling Stone, and Surface Magazine among others. Recent publications by Franch include Agenda (Lars Muller, 2014), Atlas (Lars Muller, 2015), and Manual (Lars Muller 2017)  as part of OfficeUS.

Join Eva Franch i Gilabert and Dennis Maher, executive director of Assembly House 150 and UB professor of architecture, in a public conversation about the emerging roles of cultural institutions as platforms for civic engagement and collective design action.

Wednesday, April 18
9 - 10:30 pm
Assembly House
150 Edward Street
Buffalo, NY