Sir Peter Cook, a pivotal figure within the global architecture world for more than 50 years, will deliver the L.C. Dillenbeck lecture at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Monday, March 7, at 5 p.m. in Slocum Hall Auditorium. His lecture, “Towards a Non-Solid Architecture,” is free and open to the public.
Cook is co-founder of Crab Studio in the U.K., founder of the avant-garde experimental group Archigram, and former director of the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) and the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College in London (UCL). In addition, he has been director of Art Net in London and curator of the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. He continues to curate, organize and exhibit across the world in venues from Seoul to Los Angeles, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Design Museum in London, as well as within more ambiguous spaces that include decrepit castles, weird sheds and oily garages.
His achievements with Archigram have been the subject of numerous publications and public exhibitions. In 2004, the Royal Institute of British Architects awarded the group its highest award, the Royal Gold Medal. In 2007, Cook was knighted by the Queen for his services to architecture, and in April 2010 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lund, Sweden, for his ongoing contribution to architectural innovation.
Cook’s diverse range of built projects spans the globe and includes social housing in Paris; the Port and Cruise Service Center in the Port of Kaohsiung, Taiwan; a public footbridge in Skopje, Macedonia; the Law Courts Building at the Ministry of Justice in Madrid; and the Zurich Elephant House for the Zurich Zoo. His continuing work as a highly renowned lecturer makes him a familiar voice on campuses and within cultural institutions around the world. Cook has published nine books, including his most recent, “Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture” (Wiley, 2008).
