Architectural historian to speak at School of Architecture

Architectural historian to speak at School of ArchitectureFebruary 12, 2007Mary Kate O’Brienmcobrien@syr.edu

Patricia Morton, chair and associate professor of architectural history in the History of Art Department at the University of California at Riverside, will speak at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Wednesday, Feb. 14, at 4:30 p.m. in the main auditorium of the school’s home, The Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St. Her lecture, “Setting Up Camp,” is free and open to the public. For information on parking at The Warehouse, call (315) 443-8238.

A former director of the Culver Center of the Arts, at UC Riverside, Morton has received grants and fellowships from the Getty Research Institute, the University of California Humanities Research Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts, among other institutions. Her current research focuses on “bad taste” in 1960s architecture and its relation to postmodern architecture. Recently, she presented her work in Paris, Stockholm, Ankara, Bucharest, Boston and San Francisco.

In fall 2007, she will host an international conference, “Ambivalent Geographies: Architectural History and Empire,” that will interrogate the persistence of geographic-based master narratives in architectural history.

Morton has published widely on architectural history and issues of race, gender and marginality. Her book on the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris, “Hybrid Modernities,” was published in 2000 by MIT Press and in Japan by Brucke in 2002. She is editing a volume of essays on taste and popular culture in the 1960s (forthcoming, Blackwell Press).

Morton holds a master’s of architecture degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in architectural history and theory from Princeton University.

For more information, contact Mary Kate O’Brien, communications manager of the School of Architecture, at (315) 443-2388 or mcobrien@syr.edu.