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April 20, 2024
TSOA is pleased to announce our 2023-24 Event Series, Shapes of Pedagogy, exploring the spaces, structures and practices of experimental pedagogy in architectural education. Our final event featuring Douglas Cardinal, OC, FRAIC, originally scheduled for April 25, 2024, has been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances and a new date will be announced.
1 AIA CE credit
For Douglas Cardinal, Organic Architecture is the discipline that creates spaces that come from the heart and touch the soul. Following his Indigenous teachings and Western masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Douglas Cardinal’s organic architectural process aims to manifest an ode to Mother Earth’s values, and the nurturing power of engendering creativity. Douglas Cardinal will share his unique Western and Indigenous education that has allowed him to blend the principles of Organic Architecture into his own signature style. He will showcase three projects to illustrate this point: St. Mary’s Project (1968), the National Museum of the American Indian (1998, 2004), and Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre for the University of Saskatchewan (2016). * Shown in photo.
The Speaker
Born in 1934 in Calgary, Alberta, his architectural studies at the University of British Columbia took him to Frank Lloyd’s School of Architecture at Taliesin West, and to the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas where he graduated with honours in 1963. His Western academic training corresponded with intense Indigenous teachings at Small Boys Camp and Wyoming. Following the blending of these two worldviews, Douglas Cardinal is a forerunner of all philosophies of sustainability, green buildings, and ecologically designed community planning. Indeed, his Organic Architecture springs from his observation of Nature and the understanding that everything works seamlessly together. His master plans for Indigenous communities and concept for Indian Control of Indian Education in the early 1970s brought early Indigenous schools such as Kehewin Elementary School and Diamond Jenness High School in Hay River which led to the First Nations University, and Gordon Oakes Red Bear Student Centre at the University of Saskatchewan. Perhaps best known for designing the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC, we cannot forget the smaller but pivotal Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute in the Village of Ouje-Bougamou also designed by Douglas Cardinal. The major buildings of his early career in Alberta are extraordinary examples of organic architecture, namely the iconic St Mary’s Church, Grande Prairie College, the Alberta Government Services Building in Ponoka, Saint Albert Place, and Telus Science Museum. Also blending the best of Indigenous and Western approaches to architecture are his health centers, Meno-ya-win Hospital, Wabano Aboriginal Health Centre, and Goodyear Adelante Healthcare Center in Arizona.
In recognition of his visionary contribution to architecture, Douglas Cardinal has received many acknowledgments and awards including twenty-one Honourary Doctorates from several universities in Canada and the United States, the appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada, Gold Medals in Architecture by the Royal Architectural Institute in Canada, and the Union of Architects of Russia, honourary fellowships in the Society of American Registered Architects and the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, the nomination of Commander of the Order of the Civil Merit by the King of Spain, Felipe VI, and the declaration of being "World Master of Contemporary Architecture" as a Professor and Academician by the International Association of Architects. Douglas Cardinal was also an early recipient of the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards and is a deeply respected member of the Indigenous community as an Elder, Pipe Carrier, Lodge Keeper, and Eagle Headdress-Carrier of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Douglas Cardinal continues his holistic multidisciplinary architectural practice in Ottawa, Ontario where he currently resides with his wife and partner Idoia Arana-Beobide.
Cattle Track Arts Gallery
6105 N Cattletrack Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
1 AIA CE credit
The Lecture
Michelle Chang presents the development of her research and practice, JaJa Co. She frames her work as a series of predictions, desires, gains, and losses.
The Speaker
Michelle Chang is an assistant professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the director of her independent practice, JaJa Co. Chang's design work experiments with architecture’s representational frameworks in the design of small buildings in U.S. suburbs and towns. In her research, she studies how technology and media paradigms translate to architecture through material and labor.
Cattle Track Arts Gallery
6105 N Cattletrack Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
1 AIA CE credit
Molly Hunker and Kyle Miller present their new book, Building Practice, which features interviews with architects, designers, educators, curators, fabricators, strategists, critics, and activists who are advancing speculative design through the culture and politics of building, capturing critical and formative moments associated with building a practice. Each interview in the book reveals strategies for linking practical and theoretical forms of knowledge and evidences the active creation of unique approaches to contributing positively to both architectural culture and the built environment. Hunker and Miller articulate how architects today claim conceptual territory regarding form, space, order, materiality, and aesthetics, and push for design to have meaning and value in relation to cultural, environmental, political, and social concerns. The individuals and practices profiled in the book collectively partition themselves from previous generations of experimentally motivated practices while individually exemplifying their own inimitable affinities, techniques, and sensibilities. Building Practice shares the first acts of an emerging generation of practices and identifies the peripheral yet pivotal aspects of building a practice today.
Cattle Track Arts Gallery
6105 N Cattletrack Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
Join MFA Boston curator Michelle Millar Fisher as she shares the story of her journey across the United States on Amtrak to visit pivotal schools and sites (including TSoA) that have shaped craft in the United States over the last century. Where is craft taught? In what ways does place matter to craft learning? And how do we access these places?
The resulting project, "Craft Schools" is a multiyear project encompassing public programs with artists across the US, artwork acquisitions to enhance MFA Boston’s contemporary craft collection, and, ultimately, a publication framing modern-day craft as inclusive and alive—inside and outside the walls of museums.
Starting location:
The School of Architecture Studio
7610 E McDonald Drive, Suite G
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
Ending/reception location:
Cattle Track Arts Gallery
6105 N Cattletrack Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
Join us for an open house and interactive tour celebrating the latest iteration of the school, presented by students, faculty, and the artists-in-residence at Cattle Track Arts. The tour ends with a reception at the Cattle Track Arts Gallery.
Cattle Track Arts Gallery
6105 N Cattletrack Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250
The School of Architecture is pleased to kick off our 2023-24 Event Series, Shapes of Pedagogy, at our new location at Cattle Track Arts Compound with a reflection on four periods of the school's history. Through a roundtable discussion, our invited speakers will expand on their individual experiences in shaping the school, while also exploring the through-lines, shared values, and structures of the school's program across different generations of leadership. Speakers will include:
1 AIA CE credit
