Museum architect Philip Freelon to lecture at SU School of Architecture

Museum architect Philip Freelon to lecture at SU School of ArchitectureSeptember 20, 2007Mary Kate O’Brienmcobrien@syr.edu

Philip Freelon, principal of The Freelon Group, a 50-member architectural firm located in Research Triangle Park, N.C., will speak at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Wednesday, Sept. 26, at 4:30 p.m. in the main auditorium of the school’s home, The Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St. The lecture, titled “Museum Projects and Other Current Work,” is free and open to the public. For information on parking at The Warehouse, call (315) 443-8238.

Since its inception in 1990, Freelon’s firm has been involved in a range of projects diverse in scale, building type and scope that have had a positive impact on the communities in which they are built. The firm has recently completed two major museum projects — the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture in Baltimore and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) in San Francisco. The Freelon Group has received 26 American Institute of Architects (AIA) design awards (regional, state and local) and has also received the North Carolina AIA Outstanding Firm Award in 2001.

A native of Philadelphia, Freelon received a bachelor of environmental design (architecture) degree and top design honors from North Carolina State University’s College of Design. He earned his master of architecture degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served as an adjunct professor at the College of Design at North Carolina State University and has been a visiting critic/lecturer at Harvard, MIT, the University of Maryland, the University of Utah, the California College of the Arts and Kent State University (Florence, Italy, program), among others. He returned to the classroom this fall to teach a seminar on design-centered practice at MIT.

Freelon’s work has been published in several national professional journals, including Architecture, Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record and Contract magazines.

He is currently serving as a peer professional in the GSA’s Design Excellence Program and has served on the National Endowment for the Arts Design Stewardship Panel. Freelon is a fellow of AIA and was recently appointed to the Jury for the 2007 National AIA Institute Honor Awards for Architecture.

This lecture is held in conjunction with The Society of Multicultural Architects and Designers (SMAD) at Syracuse University.

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