Michael Graves, 1934-2015

Michael Graves, who died yesterday at the age of 80, was born in Indianapolis and left to study architecture at the University of Cincinnati and Harvard University. He taught architecture at Princeton University for 40 years and is known as one of the most prominent architects of the latter 20th century.

 He returned to Indiana numerous times to design buildings such as the Indianapolis Art Center (1996) in Broad Ripple and the NCAA Hall of Champions (1997) in Indianapolis. Graves visited Ball State University's relatively young College of Architecture and Planning in 1974 to give a lecture titled "A Little of the Old In and Out," a recording of which resides in the Drawings + Documents Archive. In the lecture, available on the University Libraries' Digital Media Repository, Graves gives a fascinating discussion of his projects, concepts of how to look at space, and extensively discusses the paintings of Matisse, Picasso, and Cezanne in relation to his own work. He also discusses the work of other architects, such as Le Corbusier.

Balthazar Korab, 1926-2013

Balthazar Korab, the extraordinary architecture photographer, died this week, and we honor his memory by sharing his visit to Ball State University's College of Architecture and Planning in 1973.

After a cold January day spent photographing a building in Lebanon, Indiana, Korab visited the College of Architecture and Planning to give a lecture at the College's Monday night Guest Lecture Series. This is the recording of that lecture, titled "The Architect Photographer," which is available in the University Libraries' Digital Media Repository.

CAP Guest Lecture Series Recordings Online

The first 50 audio recordings in the College of Architecture and Planning Guest Lecture Series Recordings are now availble for research and discovery in the Ball State University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository. Listen to some of the very first speakers who came to our fledgling design school from 1966-73. You’ll see names you will likely recognize, such as Louis I. Kahn, Nathaniel Owings, Romaldo Giurgola, among other regional figures such as Ewing Miller and Evans Woollen. We are continuing to digitize the remainder of the collection and will send notices as those lectures are online. You can find all of the first installment at http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm4/collection.php?CISOROOT=/CAPLectures

Alphabetical list of guest lectures in the first installment of the collection:

Jeffrey Ellis Aronin

"Climate in architecture." January 8, 1968.

Edmund Bacon
"Planning, architecture, and politics." January 10, 1972.

Jacques Blumer
"Atelier 5." April 24, 1967.

Elliott Brenner
"Experimental architecture." April 24, 1967.

Samuel Brody
"Urban housing." January 15, 1973.

Grady Clay
"Staying ahead of the urban crowd." November 13, 1967.

Charles Counts
"American crafts." March 11, 1968.

George Danforth
"The work of Mies van Der Rohe." February 12, 1968.

Jeanne Davern
"The future of architecture." October 16, 1967.

Arthur Erickson
"The work of his firm." September 18, 1972.

Tom Everman
"Project and office management." SOM Lecture Series, September 17, 1973.

Albert Fein
"Frederick Law Olmstead and tradition." October 9, 1972.

Paul Friedberg
"Dynamics of open space." September 20, 1971.

William J. Geddis
"Recent work of TAC [The Architects' Collaborative, Inc.]." January 8, 1973.

Romaldo Giurgola
"Romaldo Giurgola: his private architectural practice." November 11, 1968.

Whitney Gordon
"International slums." October 3, 1966.
"Architecture in Middletown." January 15, 1968.

King Graf
"Campus planning." October 17, 1966.

A. J. H. M. Haak
"Dutch architecture." September 19, 1966.

George Hall
"Planning the Calumet River basin." October 2, 1967.

Edward T. Hall
"Proxemics--man's use of space." October 23, 1972.

John Hannaford
"A plan for Muncie and Anderson." February 13, 1967.

Harwell Harris
"Designing architecture in California and Texas." December 18, 1967.
"Greene and Greene architects." December 19, 1967.
"Louis Sullivan." December 19, 1967.

Charles Harris
"Organization and management of design firms." October 2, 1972.

Richard Howard
"Architectural graphics." September 25, 1967.

William Johnson
"Landscape architecture and the environment." January 13, 1969.

Louis I. Kahn
"Architecture." April 14, 1971.

Fazlur Khan
"Long span structures." SOM Lecture Series, September 24, 1973.
"The SOM office process: engineering and the computer." SOM Lecture Series, September 25, 1973.

Balthazar Korab
"The architect photographer." January 22, 1973.

Leslie Laskey
"Design education now." October 23, 1967.

Victor A. Lundy
"On architecture." October 30, 1972.

H. Roll McLaughlin
"Future for the past." January 22, 1968.

David Meeker
"James Associates, Inc.." October 9, 1967.

Ewing Miller and L. Wheeler
"Behavioral research for architectural planning." December 11, 1967.

Samuel V. Noe
"Strategic urban design." November 14, 1966.

Franz Oswald
"Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center, Harvard University." October 30, 1967.

Nathaniel Owings
"The spaces in between." SOM Lecture Series, September 10, 1973.

J. Norman Pease
"Charlotte/Mecklenburg Governmental Center." November 6, 1967.

Robert A. Peterson
"Brazilia." March 27, 1967.

Robert Propst
"Furniture exhibition opening." April 3, 1967.

Mildred Schmertz
"Russian architecture." 1973.

Jerome Sincoff
"National Air and Space Museum." September 25, 1972.

George M. Stephens Jr.
"Urban and regional planning." February 6, 1967.

Evans Woollen III
"Radiant city revisited." May 15, 1967.

Thomas K. Zung
"Concepts of architecture in the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico." December 4, 1967.


Images: Harry Weese with students, Jeanne Davern, and Duncan Stewart. CAP Images Collection, Drawings + Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries.

Lighting the Future

If there's one thing Midwesterners need this time of year, it's light. To help us, Paul Zaferiou, a Principal in the Boston lighting consulting firm Lam Partners, Inc., will present his talk on the "Future of Lighting" at Ball State University's College of Architecture and Planning January 25th, at 4 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Zaferiou has degrees in Architecture from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Oregon and is a registered architect. In his 24 years of lighting consulting experience, he has managed scores of projects representing a wide range of project types and geographic locations. His professional experience is complemented by his teaching and authoring of articles on architectural lighting design. Some of the high profile projects he has worked on are: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain; The Getty Villa in Malibu, CA.; the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center; and the Metropolitan Kansas City Performing Arts Center.

To get the intellectual equivalent of a vitamin D supplement, come to the lecture January 25th, 4 p.m., in the College of Architecture and Planning, room 100.

Above photo is of the Salt Lake City Public Library, one of Paul Zaferiou's lighting projects through Lam Partners, Inc. Photo courtesy of the Salt Lake City Public Library: http://www.slcpl.lib.ut.us/details.jsp?parent_id=7&page_id=5