Morgan Lectures 2006 - 07

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

September 12, 2006, 6 p.m.
Stow Chapman, University of Louisville
"Stow Chapman: Forty Years of Art, Design, & Architecture"



Professor Chapman will discuss his forty plus years in the architectural field and how he has managed to maintain his client's beliefs, budget, and intentions while upholding his own principles and utilizing an expanding field of personal influences. Professor Chapman was born and raised in a suburb of Milwaukee. He attended The University of Michigan, University of Illinois, and Columbia University. He attained a Master of Architecture from Columbia in 1964. Professor Chapman won the Ryerson Fellowship from the University of Illinois, and was one of six winners of the National Building Museum Terra Cotta Competition. He is the recipient of many Architectural recognitions, both local and nationwide. He is published in the new Louisville Guide to Architecture.

February 1, 2007, 6 p.m.
Sandy McLendon, "The Architecture of Vertigo"



Since 1957, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo has been mesmerizing audiences with its blend of plot, performances, and mise-en-scene. While Vertigo has been written about on many levels, there has not yet been a full examination of the film's visual aspects and their part in evoking the mood of Hitchcock's masterpiece. The Architecture of Vertigo will detail Hitchcock's use of San Francisco architecture and geography, used both literally and with deliberate distortion, to advance his plot. The costumes, automobiles, furnishings and objects assigned to each of Vertigo's characters will also be examined; they too are there to extend Vertigo's story far beyond the edges of the frame, providing greater information and detail than the words of the film's script could convey. Much of Vertigo takes place in the viewer's head: The Architecture of Vertigo attempts to demonstrate how that feat was accomplished.

Sandy McLendon writes about architecture and design. His work has appeared in Old House Interiors and Arts & Crafts Homes, as well as Modernism Magazine, where he is a contributing editor. His book about the use of prefabrication in building custom housing, PreFAB Elements, was published in 2005 by HarperCollins.

February 27, 2007, 6 p.m.
Robert McCarter, "The Houses of Frank Lloyd Wright"



The design of the American house was the primary task and mission Frank Lloyd Wright gave himself as an architect. This lecture presents Wright's houses in three periods, closely examining one or two primary examples of each to allow better understanding of these extraordinary places. Beginning with the Prairie Houses (1895-1915), wherein Wright developed his concepts of modern space first in the interior — what he called "the space within" — rather than on the exterior, of his houses; and the manner in which the experience of inhabitation became the primary ordering principle in Wright's architecture. Followed by the Concrete Block Houses (1915-1935), in which Wright engaged the methods of construction in architecture which he related to weaving rather than sculpting — and what he called "the nature of materials." Concluding with the Usonian Houses (1935-59), wherein Wright established a effective relationship between the interior spaces of his houses and the landscape in which they were built, allowing nature to become the setting for the daily rituals of family life.

Thursday, March 29, 2007, 6 p.m.
Tamara I. Sears, New York University
"The Architecture of Asceticism in Early Medieval India"



This lecture explores the ways in which Hindu ascetic communities articulated their changing relationships with society through the forms of their buildings during the eighth through twelfth centuries. She will focus on the relationship between the monasteries that were built to house groups of ascetics and the temples that formed the foci for more public ritual activity.

April 10, 2007, 6 p.m.
Robert McCarter, "Louis I. Kahn: The Eternal and the Circumstantial"



A general overview of the life and architecture of Louis I. Kahn, emphasizing the variety of ways in which Kahn brought together the eternal and the circumstantial, the ancient and the modern, the timeless and that which is inextricably bound up in our own time. The lecture begins with Kahn's education in Philadelphia, his early work as a housing architect, his trips to Europe, and his involvement in teaching at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania. Also explored are Kahn's relationships with such figures as Josef and Anni Albers, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Le Ricolais, Aldo van Eyck, Isamu Noguchi, Carlo Scarpa, among others, and how their shared ideals of modern art and architecture informed Kahn's work. The lecture will present Kahn's major works of architecture, including the Yale Art Gallery, the Salk Institute, the First Unitarian Church, the Indian Institute of Management, the Bangladesh National Capital, the Exeter Library, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Kimbell Art Museum, as well as several important unrealized designs.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007, 6 p.m.
Visiting Morgan Chair Jodi Magness
"Ancient Synagogues in the Land of Israel"



What did the synagogues in which Jesus and Paul preached look like? In this slide-illustrated lecture, we survey the archaeological remains of ancient synagogues of the Roman and Byzantine periods in Palestine (modern Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories). We also discuss the decoration of these synagogue buildings, which consists mainly of mosaic floors and carved stone reliefs and includes - surprisingly - some pagan motifs such as Helios (the Greco-Roman sun god).

Thursday, September 20, 2007, 6 pm
"Frank Lloyd Wright's Racine"
Mark Hertzberg, Director of Photography, The Journal Times


Photo: Gregory Shaver - The Journal Times.

Frank Lloyd Wright's built and unbuilt commissions in Racine, Wisconsin (1901-1954) represent almost every significant stage of his career after 1900. They include Prairie-style, zoned and Usonian homes; public buildings, and his first executed tap-root tower. Mark Hertzberg, the author and photographer of "Wright in Racine" (Pomegranate, 2004) and "Frank Lloyd Wright's Hardy House (Pomegranate, 2006) presents a comprehensive review this body of work in his illustrated lecture. Hertzberg is Director of Photography at The Journal Times in Racine. He is a member of the board of the Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin Tourism Heritage Program, and a co-chair of the 2007 Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy's national meeting in October. He has a B.A. in International Relations from Lake Forest College.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007, 6 p.m.
"Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus"
Visiting Morgan Chair Jodi Magness



From 40-4 B.C., Herod the Great ruled Judea as client king on behalf of the Romans. Herod sponsored a massive building program in Jerusalem, including the reconstruction of the Jewish temple. This was the Jerusalem that Jesus knew, and this is the city that was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 A.D. Using slides and maps we become acquainted with the layout and monuments of the city, focusing especially on the Temple Mount.

Thursday, November 8, 2007, 6 pm
"German Baroque Architecture"
Tom Buser, University of Louisville



Most Americans know very little about the efflorescence of Baroque architecture in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century. Even tourists have trouble finding these buildings because many of them are located far out in the countryside. Among the hundreds of churches built during this short period, two churches stand out as the finest examples of their kind: Balthasar Neumann’s Vierzehnheiligen and Georg Bähr’s Frauenkirche. Neumann’s church is in the south of Germany and, consequently, is Catholic. Bähr’s Frauenkirche is in the Protestant north. Vierzehnheiligen, in the valley of the Main River, is a rural pilgrimage church, catering to Roman Catholic veneration of the saints. Frauenkirche, in the heart of the city of Dresden, was constructed to accommodate the Lutheran choral service, well known to us through the music of Bach. Each architect designed his church around its liturgical function with brilliant planning, light, color, and sound that dazzle the imagination and continue to satisfy the religious aspirations of the people