Marlon Blackwell, “Radical Practice”

Event Description:
Marlon Blackwell will discuss his architecture and design process and will introduce ‘Radical Practice: The Work of Marlon Blackwell Architects’, a new monograph released in June 2022 by Princeton Architectural Press. The iconic and award-winning designs span across typologies, scales, and budgets by merging the universal language of architecture and the particulars of place. The lecture discusses the richness of the work, its methods, and its consequences - suggesting an open-endedness, at once generous and provocative, to the practice’s trajectory and interest in what a “radical practice” can be. A core principle at the heart of the practice, radical in its fundamental simplicity, is how the making of buildings and places is a constant, authentic focus.
Speaker:
Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, is a practicing architect in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and is teaching as the John Portman Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design for the Spring of 2024. He also serves as the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. In 2020, Marlon was honored with the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. The Gold Medal is the AIA’s highest annual honor, recognizing individuals whose work has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture. Blackwell is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2023) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2021), a 2019 Resident Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a 2014 United States Artists Ford Fellow, and a 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award recipient in Architecture. Work produced in his professional office, Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA), has received significant recognition with the firm winning over 180 design awards. In 2022, Marlon released Radical Practice, a monograph of MBA’s recent work, published by Princeton Architectural Press.
0:00 Introduction by Grace La
09:29 Lecture by Marlon Blackwell
01:11:16 Discussion and Q+A