Architect Neil Denari to lecture at Syracuse Architecture

Architect Neil Denari to lecture at Syracuse ArchitectureSeptember 29, 2008Elaine Wackerowedwacker@syr.edu

Neil Denari, principal of Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA) in Los Angeles and professor-in-residence in the Architecture and Urban Design department at UCLA, will speak at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Friday, Oct. 3, at 5 p.m. in Slocum Hall Auditorium. His lecture, “The New Intimacy,” is free and open to the public.

Denari has had a distinguished career as an educator and architect. He is internationally recognized for his work that explores the technical and formal impact of technology on architecture. NMDA is considered one of the pioneers in the use of computers in architectural design and visualization.

Denari was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and studied at the University of Houston and Harvard University. After graduate school, he worked as a technical intern in Paris for Aerospatiale Helicoptres (now Airbus) and moved to New York in 1983. In New York City, he worked as a senior designer at James Stewart Polshek and Partners, and exhibited his speculative work at numerous museums and galleries. Denari’s work is included in the collections of the Cooper Hewitt Museum the Museum of Modern Art New York, MOMA San Francisco, the Denver Art Museum, the Heinz-Carnegie Collection in Pittsburgh, the FRAC Center in Orleans, France, and the Museum of Modern Art in Sydney, Australia.

Denari shifted his practice to Los Angeles in 1988 and began Cor-Tex Architecture, which later became Neil M. Denari Architects Inc. in 1998. In the late 1980s, Denari’s work began to achieve international recognition, most notably through his third-place finish in the Tokyo International Forum Competition. His first project built in Japan (1996), the Interrupted Projections exhibition space, has now been followed by a series of bank projects for the Mitsubishi Trust Financial Group and other experience economy projects.

Prior to his appointment at UCLA, Denari’s teaching career included serving as the director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture from 1997-2001. He also taught at Columbia University, the Bartlett and the University of Texas at Arlington. In fall 2007, Denari was a visiting professor at both the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University.

Denari is author of two bestselling books, “Gyroscopic Horizons” (Princeton, 1999) and “Interrupted Projections” (TOTO, 1996). In 2002, he was given both the Richard Recchia Award and the Samuel F.B. Morse Medal for architecture from the National Academy of Design in New York for distinguished work in the field. In 2008, Denari received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Syracuse University School of Architecture is the fourth-oldest program in the United States and consistently rated among the top architecture schools in the country. In 2008, the school’s undergraduate program was ranked third in the nation by DesignIntelligence.

For more information, visit http://soa.syr.edu.