Director of Netherlands Architecture Institute to lecture March 30 at SU School of Architecture

Director of Netherlands Architecture Institute to lecture March 30 at SU School of ArchitectureMarch 15, 2005Jaime Winne Alvarez jlwinne@syr.edu

Aaron Betsky, director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, will lecture at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture, March 30 at 4:30 p.m., in Room 108 of Slocum Hall. His lecture, “How Dutch Design Will Save You,” is free and open to the public.

Public parking for the lecture can be arranged by calling Jeanne Riley in the School of Architecture at (315) 443-2255.

As director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, the largest architecture museum in the world, Betsky oversees the museum, the archive of all Dutch architecture after 1800 and an extensive program of public lectures and debates. He has been responsible for reorganizing both the physical and managerial structures of the institute and has overseen an active program of exhibition and acquisition. He also takes an active role in debates on architecture and urbanism in The Netherlands and lectures extensively on Dutch design around the world.

Betsky was previously curator of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where he was responsible for exhibiting and collecting designed artifacts and spaces in the fields of architecture, urban design, landscape design, interior design, industrial design, furniture and graphic design. During his tenure he organized more than 50 exhibitions and helped organize several dozen lectures, public symposia and competitions. In 1995, he co-founded the San Francisco Prize, an annual competition that elicited designs for the Philip Burton Federal Plaza and Union Square.

Betsky has taught and lectured extensively. He was an instructor and coordinator of special projects at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, has taught at the University of Cincinnati and was recently a visiting professor in studio teaching at Columbia and Rice Universities. He is active as a writer on design, is a contributing editor for Architecture, Metropolitan Home, Blueprint and ID magazines and has published a dozen books on architecture and design. He previously worked as a designer in the offices of Hodgetts and Fung Design and of Frank Gehry, and in 1987 set up his own design practice while teaching and writing in Los Angeles. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from Yale University and currently resides in Rotterdam.