Tonight’s lecture, Current Work: FOA, is currently scheduled to take place as planned. If the weather changes for the worse and a cancellation is necessary, the League will make a general announcement through @theLeague. Any questions, please call 212.753.1722.

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, co-founder with Farshid Moussavi of the London-based Foreign Office Architects (FOA), will present the firm’s recent work and current projects under design and construction.

FOA’s current projects include the Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication in Greenwich, UK; Trinity EC3 office complex in the City of London; the redevelopment of Euston Station and Birmingham New Street Station; a new Maggie’s Centre in Newcastle; an office complex in Barcelona; a large office complex in Toulouse; as well as high-rise residential towers in both Korea and Malaysia. FOA is also designing the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland. Following the completion of these projects, the firm has announced its planned dissolution.

Awards to the firm include the Enric Miralles Prize for Architecture, the Kanagawa Prize for Architecture, three RIBA Worldwide Awards, the Special Award in Topography at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Charles Jencks Award for Architecture, a RIBA European Award for Carabanchel Social Housing in Madrid, and a 2009 RIBA Award for the John Lewis Department Store and Cineplex. FOA also represented Britain at the 8th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2002. The work of the firm has been widely published and exhibited.

In parallel to his professional activities, Zaera-Polo has developed a substantial role within academia. He was the dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and currently occupies the Berlage Chair at the Technical University of Delft. He is also a visiting professor at Princeton University and the first recipient of the Norman R. Foster Visiting Professorship at Yale. He has published extensively as a theorist in El Croquis, Quaderns, A+U, Arch+, Volume, Log, and many other international magazines, and is a member of the London School of Economics Urban Age project.

The practice’s multi-award winning Yokohama International Cruise Terminal in Japan—a dramatically formed port integrated with urban facilities noted for its fascination with the interplay of architecture, landscape, and nature—is credited by the Design Museum as “a design sensation, alive with bustling urbanity and seaside tranquillity.”

Zaera-Polo graduated from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid and Harvard GSD with distinction and worked at OMA in Rotterdam prior to establishing FOA in 1993.

Moderated by Lyn Rice. Rice is the founding principal of Lyn Rice Architects and serves on The Architectural League’s board of directors.

Support

This lecture is cosponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union. This program is made possible, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.