Please join us for the annual Llewelyn-Davies Sahni Innovative Practice Lecture.
Terence Hawkes once said, “The true nature of things may be said to lie not in things themselves, but in the relationships which we construct and then perceive, between them.” The notion of “traversing between space, time, and practice” has long been embedded in Neri & Hu's architectural practice.
This lecture will examine a series of contemporary issues in various global contexts and will aim to shed light on how Neri & Hu grounds its work while maintaining an intellectual inquiry into adaptive reuse and the role of history, reimagined spatial legibility associated with voyeurism, tectonics, and the use of poché, a search for a connection back to the vernacular, and the role of collective memory and fragments.
In 2004, Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu founded Neri & Hu Design and Research Office, an interdisciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China.
Stream the lecture online by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Lyndon Neri
Founding Partner of Neri & Hu Design and Research Office
Lyndon Neri co-founded Neri&Hu Design and Research Office with Rossana Hu in 2004, an inter-disciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China. Neri received his Master of Architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design and his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Alongside his design practice, Neri has been deeply committed to architectural education, and has taught and lectured in numerous universities. He was appointed the John Portman Chair at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2019 and 2022, the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor in 2022 and Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor Chair in 2018 at the Yale School of Architecture.
Engaging Pluralism
When ideologies and cultures collide, new ways of working with and living in the world emerge. As a form of political philosophy, pluralism draws upon this dynamic condition, promoting the coexistence of multiple approaches and worldviews. Yet in the context of compounding crises and unchecked inequality, this is far from a neutral position: it becomes a commitment to struggle and discourse. Drawing from a broad-ranging group of speakers, Rice Architecture’s annual lecture series, Engaging Pluralism, explores how architects and designers can work with friction, contradiction, and multiplicity to effect broader social, cultural, and environmental change. It is an all-school platform for reflecting on the possibilities and challenges of designing for a pluralistic society.
All lectures are free and open to the public and, unless noted otherwise, will be held in person in Farish Gallery, MD Anderson Hall, with a livestream component. In the event that COVID-19 circumstances prohibit in-person lectures, the series will be held virtually via Zoom. Each lecture has been submitted for AIA CES approval.
This lecture series is made possible through the generous support of the Llewelyn-Davies Sahni Fund for the Rice School of Architecture, the Betty R. and the George F. Pierce Jr., FAIA, Fund, the William B. Coleman Jr. Colloquium Fund for Architecture, the Wm. W. Caudill Lecture Series Fund, and Rice Design Alliance (RDA), the public programs and outreach arm of Rice Architecture. RDA’s programs are made possible through the generous support of RDA members and Underwriters: Harvey | Harvey-Cleary, Agile Interiors, Tellepsen Family, ABB/Wholesale Electric Supply Co. of Houston, Big State Electric, Brochsteins, CED Houston, HKS, Inc., KenMor Engineering, Marek, Turner Construction, and Walter P Moore. Additional programming support is provided by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.