ABOUT US
NEWS
【Lecture 26.10.2023】 LA DALLMAN, on practice from the middle
Release time：2023-10-25
Speaker
Grace La
Chair and Professor, Department of Architecture, Harvard GSD
Principal, La Dallman
James Dallman
Principal, La Dallman
Design Critic, Harvard GSD
LA DALLMAN’s “middle front” articulates a position of architecture grounded in the premise that “exceptionality” has currently become the least common denominator in a transforming, eclectic, and fragmented field. The middle front considers architectural realities that are neither explicitly exceptional, nor properly ordinary, acknowledging a vantage point in the middle, from which quotidian typologies (bridges, street furniture, public buildings, houses) silently, yet forcefully serve at the forefront of shaping the city. We might ask, therefore, how to produce architecture within the neglected realm of the middle? This theoretical and practical stance addresses the challenges facing the discipline of architecture today. The lecture will draw from excerpts of Grace La and James Dallman’s forthcoming book, the Middle Front, which is currently in progress. The talk will share the initial formations of this thinking, as well as thoughts on practice, and reflections on the discipline of architecture as a transformative act.
Grace La and James Dallman are Principals of LA DALLMAN, a practice internationally recognized for works that integrate architecture, engineering, and site. Grace is also Professor of Architecture, and Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. James serves as Design Critic in Architecture. Currently, they will be teaching an option studio together on housing in Denmark.
LMAN is noted for projects that expand the architect’s agency in the civic recalibration of infrastructure, public space, and mid-century modern buildings, LA DALLMAN has received over fifty professional honors and delivered more than sixty lecture and presentations of the firm’s work. LA DALLMAN was named an Emerging Voice by the Architectural League of NY, recognized with a Progressive Architecture Award (cover of Architect, 2021), and more than a dozen honors from the BSA and AIA Wisconsin. Demonstrating a unique ability to link the profession and the academy, La chaired the GSD’s Practice Forum (2014-2022), and hosts Talking Practice, a podcast renowned for its discourse on design practice.
La received her M.Arch with thesis distinction from the Harvard GSD, winning the Clifford Wong Housing Prize. She graduated AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College in Visual and Environmental Studies.
Dallman received his M.Arch from the Harvard GSD, where he was a finalist for the Kelley Thesis Prize. He graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a B.S. in architecture.
Time
19:00-20:35, Oct 26th
Venue
Auditorium A215, Wenyuan Building, CAUP, Tongji University
