The spring 2022 Current Work series focuses on architectural practices designing museums, schools, and cultural centers that contend with the complex legacies of place. 

Michael Maltzan is the founding principal of Michael Maltzan Architecture (MMA), an architecture and urban design practice based in Los Angeles. Since its founding in 1995, the firm’s projects have crossed a wide range of programs, scales, materials, and economies. From exhibition design to large-scale urban infrastructure, Maltzan’s work is “dedicated to engaging the public realm, to exploring the complexity and possibility inherent in architecture,” according to the firm. 

Recent projects include:

• Qaumajuq, the Inuit Art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, a 36,000-square-foot museum addition that celebrates historic and contemporary Inuit art and culture; 
• Star Apartments, a mixed-use complex in downtown Los Angeles whose program includes social services, community recreational facilities, and residential units for formerly unhoused individuals;
• Sixth Street Viaduct, a 3,500-foot bridge and public park spanning downtown Los Angeles.

Michael Maltzan holds an MArch from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and BFA and BArch degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award, the AIA Los Angeles Gold Medal, and the Society of Architectural Historians Change Agent Award. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 2020. 

MMA’s work has been recognized with five Progressive Architecture Awards, the Rudy Bruner Foundation’s Gold Medal for Urban Excellence, and the Zumtobel Group Award for Innovations for Sustainability & Humanity in the Built Environment. Several of the firm’s projects have received local, state, and national recognition from the AIA, including a 2020 Best of the Millennium AIA LA Honor Award.

The lecture will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with architectural consultant and critic Karen Stein.

Support

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The event is co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design.