PULLMAN — William Morrish, the Elwood R. Quesada Professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban and Environmental Planning, at the School of Architecture, University of Virginia., will lecture at WSU on Friday, April 17 on the idea of infrastructure as a cultural ecology.
His lecture, “Into Sight, Into Mind. The Design of Civilizing Terrain,” will be held in the Communication Addition (CADD) auditorium at 6 p.m. following two days of student lectures on the WSU campus.
A licensed architect, urban designer and educator, Morrish was hailed by New York Times architecture critic, Herbert Muschamp as the most valuable thinker in urbanism today. This work is exemplified by his innovative urban design plan for The City of Phoenix, Arizona’s public art plan which unites artist and public work engineers in the transformation of city utilities into the a citywide cultural setting and new public realm. Morrish’s urban design work approaches infrastructure as a cultural landscape — the connective safety net that knits citizens, public spaces, social institutions, cultural expression and the natural environment into multi-operational urban landscape networks.
In addition to infrastructure, his research work involves working on the development of models for compact mid-density affordable housing to be located inside existing single ring suburban towns and inner city neighborhoods.
A former resident of New Orleans, Morrish has been working in collaboration with local and national design firms and not for profit agencies on the processes of rebuilding the City of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina. He is currently writing a book on his experience working to rebuild city and the lessons that might be drawn from this effort for other American cites.
Morrish holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley (1971), and Master of Architecture in Urban Design (1978) from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
The 2009 Callison Distinguished Lecture is sponsored by Callison Architecture, Inc and the School of Architecture and Construction Management.
