Rice Architecture is thrilled to welcome our new dean, Igor Marjanović, who officially begins today as the William Ward Watkin Dean and Professor at Rice Architecture. He recently sat down with The Architect’s Newspaper and together with four other educators reflected on the state of architectural pedagogy today. You can read the interview with Marjanović here.
As announced on May 18, Marjanović brings a truly international background and many accomplishments to Rice Architecture. Before moving to Houston, he was at Washington University in St. Louis for fifteen years, where he served as the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor and chair of undergraduate architecture programs. Trained as an architect across the East-West cultural and political divides—in Belgrade, Serbia (then Yugoslavia), Moscow, and Chicago—he received a Ph.D. at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. He has practiced architecture globally, too—in Belgrade, Fortaleza (Brazil), and Chicago—spanning the Global South and North. His practice with Katerina Rüedi Ray, ReadyMade Studio, engaged immigration, diversity, and globalization, including the community partnership with the Sofia Quintero Latino Art and Cultural Center in Toledo, Ohio, and the installation “City of Arrivals” at the Art Institute of Chicago, which re-imagined the city’s future as one that belongs to immigrant children.
His distinctly collaborative approach to research has led to many critically acclaimed books and exhibitions. Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg’s Urban Vision was featured on PBS NewsHour, while the exhibition Drawing Ambience: Alvin Boyarsky and the Architectural Association traveled internationally to seven venues, most recently to the Jut Art Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. He brings this passion for drawing to his teaching, too. A series of Florence Studios that he taught since 2007, titled “Disegno: Encounters in Public Space,” used the medium of drawing to engage the global refugee crisis, migration, and decolonization, earning him the American Institute of Architects Education Honor Award.
Learn more about Dean Marjanović and his work here.