Morgan Lectures 2008 - 2009

Morgan Lectures are presented by
the Allen R. Hite Art Institute
@ the Speed Museum auditorium
All are Free and open to the public

Thursday, August 28th, 2008, 6 p.m.
"Structures of Belief"
Steven Skaggs, Professor of Design
University of Louisville



The lecture will briefly survey historical archetypal forms engendered in central areas of belief such as church, state, and corporation. I will develop the idea that it is possible, through semiotics, to find strong symbolic elements in the architecture - and also in the graphic design - which function as visual tropes (recurring thematic devices). After briefly isolating some of these forms and discussing how they come to act as symbols of an often- unstated referent, I will turn to the analysis of a particular institution - the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.

The Creation Museum opened in spring of 2007 with fanfare that was welcomed in fundamentalist Christian denominations, while ridiculed in much of the general press. The premise of the museum is that the creation story in Genesis is completely and literally factual. The universe was created in six days, dinosaurs and humans were contemporaries, Noah built an ark, etc. Yet, the organization behind the museum, Answers In Genesis, believes science is not contradicted by the biblical record. As a result, the Creation Museum provides an unusual opportunity to see two of the primary belief centers - science and religion - fused. How does the building, the exhibits, and the graphic design deliver their message? How does a message that is clearly marginalized in the society attempt to overcome the marginality to become the dominant reading? What can the Creation Museum teach us about the workings of propoganda, information, belief, and power? Can we come away from a visit to the Creation Museum and see subtle ways we are influenced to believe in mainstream belief structures?

Thursday, November 11th, 2008, 6 p.m.
"The Lincoln Memorial"
Christopher Thomas
Associate Professor of Art & Architectural History
University of Victoria



The coming birth bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) and his ever-green reputation — note how he reappeared, early on, in the campaign rhetoric of Illinois senator Barack Obama — underline Lincoln's continuing resonance for Americans. His posthumous presence is most distilled and localized, perhaps, in the national memorial to Lincoln on the Mall in Washington, built 1913-22 to the design of architect Henry Bacon and sculptor Daniel Chester French. More a celebration of Republican Party ideals of its day than is generally realized and more of a hymn to the Union Lincoln was credited with saving than to his personality and leadership (though the statue, especially, alludes to these), the Lincoln Memorial captures the unique blend of personal appeal and patriotic admiration the Sixteenth President excites even today. While other memorials wither, his does not; indeed, its appropriation for the cause of equal rights from the 1930s onward, especially for the March on Washington of 1963, represented a virtual re-imagining of the Lincoln Memorial. The Memorial's perennial appeal owes much to the effect of timeless Classicism architect Bacon gave it, thanks to his unique skill and sensitivity in Graeco-Roman design. Yet, the memorial is actually newer than many skyscrapers and was itself built using daring, revolutionary technology. The costliest memorial project in the capital up to then, Bacon's memorial echoed the one sketched in the Macmillan Plan for Washington of a decade earlier, and its design and construction-history steered a delicate line between celebrating the memory of a man many Americans still found controversial and the idea of the nation as it was being re-imagined under Republican hegemony after the Spanish-American War. That the site remains as effective as it does, and promises to be a fulcrum of the bicentennial celebrations, is a tribute to the deftness of its siting, scale, and "messaging." The lecture will take listeners through Lincoln's changing meaning for Americans, the protracted design and construction history of his memorial, and the "afterlife," or changing significance, of the Lincoln Memorial in social and political life up to the present.

Thursday, January 29th, 2009, 6 p.m.
"Eating Architecture & Eating Local on College Campuses"
Jamie Horwitz
Associate Professor of Architecture
Iowa State University



Observing what, where, and how people eat — a window into any culture — opens a vantage point on the culture of higher education and the history of campus architecture. Dinner was first served in 1529 to Oxford faculty sitting above and perpendicular to their students at Christ Church’s Tudor Hall. In the 20th century, food services were incorporated into on-campus living quarters, where eating with one’s peers anchored collegiate life socially, spatially and temporally. More recently, as cafes and snack bars complement each new or remodeled building, a distributed network of food and drink supports a more urban style of sociability on campuses, threading together refreshments with activities. With eating happening everywhere, and environmental concerns changing priorities and appetites, more students, faculty and administrators are seeking ways to use architecture and food to rebuild their commons. Among these efforts is an Ivy League college that made a commitment to eating fresh and “local” prior to redesigning their food services and student center. By engaging local producers and redesigning space for delivery, storage, preparation, service, clean up and disposal, the college improved their cuisine and the health of its regional economy. They also reinforced connections on-and off-campus, opened distribution channels and linked the interests of communities and environments in this demonstration of sustainable architecture.

Thursday, April 9th, 2009, 6 p.m.
"Animating the interior: Episodes from the corridor for green builders"
Jamie Horwitz
Associate Professor of Architecture
Iowa State University



Prior to the emergence of corridors in the mid-1700’s, the way that people moved through a building — whether in a palace or a farmhouse — was simply room-though-room. If thresholds aligned, as in Goethe’s Weimar house (above), the circulation offered a stunning view-through, and an unavoidable mingling of activity with what we now call traffic. A corridor is an architectural device of the 18th century that increases privacy by controlling access to rooms. Now used to separate and thread together billions of offices and apartments with long inanimate zones, these networks are unrelated to any particular architectural style. Yet, they are critical to the “style” in which we live and work. Conventional circulation design not only shapes the movement and access of people, it tends to eliminate cross-ventilation, and relies upon the delivery of unit-controlled degrees of thermal comfort. In an effort to design more energy efficient buildings, designers often integrate new technologies and materials into conventional spaces and site contexts, Drawing on historical and contemporary designs that move people, air and light through-rooms, this lecture examines the opportunities for animating interior architectures and the increasingly sustainable styles of living and working within them.