Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—The 2018 recipient of Mississippi State University’s prestigious $20,000 Aydelott Travel Award is presenting the School of Architecture’s first Harrison Lecture of the spring semester.

Fourth-year architecture student Maria I. Ory of Destrehan, Louisiana, is featured for a Wednesday [Feb. 6] presentation in Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium at Giles Hall, home to MSU’s College of Architecture, Art and Design. The 4 p.m. event is free and open to the public.

Established by the late Memphis architect Alfred Lewis Aydelott and his wife Hope Galloway Aydelott, the Aydelott Travel Award encourages proficiency in architectural analysis through travel and research. Each year, the award is presented to four students currently enrolled in the professional architecture degree programs at MSU, as well as the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Auburn University; and the University of Tennessee.

During her time abroad, Ory visited Casa Batlló designed by Antoni Guadí and located in Barcelona, Spain; Palace Portois and Fix designed by Max Fabiani and located in Vienna, Austria; Cuadra San Cristóbal designed by Luis Barragán and located in Mexico City, Mexico; and Linked Hybrid designed by Steven Holl and located in Beijing, China. Ory will discuss her approach to analyzing buildings by focusing her presentation on the integration of color and design in 20th century architecture.

Michael A. Berk, F.L. Crane Professor and MSU School of Architecture director, said the Aydelott Travel Award provides students like Ory “with a valuable opportunity to physically visit and multi-sensually experience architectural structures around the world.”

“Seeing these important works in person versus books, online or classroom lecture is the only real way to truly understand great architecture,” Berk said. “The faculty are looking forward to seeing the results of Maria’s research and travel.”

In addition to Ory’s presentation, the School of Architecture has planned four free Harrison Lectures that will take place at 4 p.m. in Harrison Auditorium. Dates and speakers include:

—Feb. 15, Jeremy Smith, design director at Irving Smith Architects, a research-based design practice working in sensitive environments throughout New Zealand and abroad. With more than 15 years of experience working as a design architect in design-led practices in New Zealand and Australia, Smith has conducted award-winning residential and public work that has been widely published both in New Zealand and internationally. Smith has lectured about the practice’s work, teaches an iterative design studio to master’s students and has been both an internal and external master’s examiner at Auckland University, where he is pursuing a design-based Ph.D. between practice commitments.

—March 8, Brian Johnsen, co-founder and co-principal of Johnsen Schmaling Architects, an architecture firm located in a former shoe factory in the Brady Street district of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Specializing in high-end residential and commercial design, Johnsen Schmaling Architects offers a full range of architectural and design services, from master planning and schematic design to construction administration, furniture design and graphics. Johnsen and colleague Sebastian Schmaling have been recognized as distinctive emerging voices in contemporary American architecture, receiving more than 70 professional design awards for their work. A Chicago native, Johnsen holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he serves as a faculty member in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

—March 29, Robert Ivy, executive vice president and CEO of the American Institute of Architects. Ivy holds a Master of Architecture degree from Tulane University and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Sewanee. In 1996, he became Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record magazine. He also served as vice president and editorial director of McGraw-Hill Construction Media and as a juror on the panel that selected architect Frank Gehry to design the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. A principal at Dean/Dale, Dean and Ivy and a critic for many national publications from 1981-96, Ivy taught in MSU’s School of Architecture in the early 1990s and currently serves as an advisory board member. In March 2010, Alpha Rho Chi national architecture fraternity voted unanimously to name Ivy as a “Master Architect,” making him one of seven to receive the honor in the fraternity’s 100-year history and the first architect selected in the 21st century.

—April 12, Sharon E. Sutton, visiting professor at Parsons School of Design, adjunct professor at Columbia University and professor emerita at the University of Washington, where she served on the faculty from 1998–2016. A noted author, printmaker, collagist and registered architect, Sutton has focused on community-based participatory research and design with a special emphasis on low-income and minority youth and other disenfranchised populations. In 1976, she became the 12th African American woman to be licensed to practice architecture. She was the first to be promoted to full professor of architecture in 1994 and the second to be elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects in 1995.

MSU’s School of Architecture offers the only curriculum in Mississippi leading to a professional degree in architecture. For more, visit www.caad.msstate.edu/sarc.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.