Frederic Lindley Morgan

Morgan Lectures 2008

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

Thursday, March 6th, 2008, 6 pm.
"Louisville 2035"
Steve Wiser, architect



25 years ago, no one wanted to go downtown, let alone live downtown. Today, downtown Louisville is thriving with businesses and residents. 25 years ago, 3 exciting projects were being implemented that transformed downtown: The Galleria; Kentucky Center for the Arts; and the Humana Building. Today, Main Street is bustling with 21C Hotel; Slugger Museum; Muhammad Ali Center; and Slugger Ballpark, as well as many other fascinating activities. Also sparking this success are the Aegon Center; Convention Center expansion; Henry Clay complex; and Waterfront revitalization.

The past 25 years indeed have been a remarkable rebirth for Louisville. In 2008, a number of dramatic projects are underway that will again remake Louisville. Museum Plaza, the Arena, City of Parks, Norton Commons, and the Bridges, among others, will soon ignite a new round of dramatic physical growth over the next 25 years. What changes will be generated by this wave of impact projects? How will residential patterns, transposition modes, and business locations be effected? Using past development history and future demographic trends, architect and historian Steve Wiser will gaze into his crystal ball and offer thought-provoking visions that might be built in Louisville by the year 2035.

Find out what new high-rises, neighborhoods, and circulation connectors may be on Louisville’s horizon in this lively, visual tour of “Louisville 2035”.

Steve Wiser is a Louisville architect who has been active in community design issues for almost 30 years. He has written dozens of design commentaries, authored several books (including “Louisville Sites to See by DESIGN”), and given numerous talks on topics like “Unbuilt Louisville” and “Lost Landmarks of Louisville”. He received the state’s highest architectural honor (the Oberwarth Award) as well as other professional recognition. Mr. Wiser is with the firm JRA Architects.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008, 6 p.m.
"The Architecture of Rear Window"
Sandy McLendon, freelance writer



In 1954, audiences were first treated to what is perhaps the ultimate Alfred Hitchcock movie, Rear Window. The film's unsettling murder mystery was certainly entertaining enough, but Hitchcock achieved more than the usual resonance with audiences, through the use of his mammoth set representing an apartment-house courtyard between West 10th and 11th Streets in New York's Greenwich Village. 1954 was a year in which American society was changing rapidly and dramatically, due to the breakdown of class distinctions and the physical dislocations that had begun during World War II. No longer did the average American necessarily live in his home town, close to family and lifetime friends; the nation's new apartment houses and suburbs threw people of disparate backgrounds and income levels into close proximity. The effects of such democratization were often salutary, but certain checks and balances inherent in American life no longer applied, creating new anxieties. Who were one's new neighbors? What did one actually know about them? And were they the sort of upstanding citizens one could wish? Hitchcock's film tapped into this postwar angst perfectly, referring to these factors and taking them one dramatic, worrying step beyond the experience of the average viewer. Hitchcock's apartments in Rear Window are emblematic of many factors common to American life in 1954, from new questions of privacy generated by smaller living spaces, to a need to individualize near-identical housing units, to the anonymity newly available to those who would live outside society's rules. The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window will attempt to demonstrate how the director used commonly encountered architectural elements and used them to manipulate his audiences into acceptance of the tale he wished to tell.

Sandy Mclendon is the author of Prefab Elements: Adding Custom Features to Your Home, Harper Collins, 2005

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?

Morgan Lectures 2007

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.

Tuesday, November 13, 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