The annual conference organized by and featuring MFA Design Criticism graduating students. This year's event is moderated by John Hockenberry, host of NPR's The Takeaway, and features Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Andrew Blauvelt, curator of architecture and design at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; architect and theorist Mark Foster Gage; Toni Griffin, director of the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City, New York; Fiona Raby, co-founder of UK interaction design firm Dunne & Raby; and architect and activist Michael Sorkin. Topics of discussion include the persistence of segregation in built environments, problems inherent in exhibiting graphic design, framing nature in the urban environment, product design's social and participatory dimension, and emerging architects who are using literal representation in new ways.

Register: 2013dcritconference-eorg.eventbrite.com.

Moderator

John Hockenberry is the founding host of National Public Radio's "The Takeaway" and has worked in network television, documentary film, and new media. He is also the author of A River out of Eden (Doubleday, 2001), a novel, and Moving Violations (Hyperion, 1996), a memoir and National Book Critic's Circle Award finalist. He has won four Emmy Awards and four Peabody Awards and, as an advocate for social justice and the rights of the disabled, has spoken at the United Nations and the White House.

Keynote speaker

Paola Antonelli is senior curator of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and a faculty member of the MFA Design Criticism Department at SVA. Her honors include the 2006 Cooper-Hewitt Design Mind Award; a senior fellowship from the Royal College of Art, London; and an honorary doctorate from Kingston University, London.

Speakers

Andrew Blauvelt is curator of architecture and design and chief of communications and audience engagement at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He has organized several major touring exhibitions and is currently working on an exhibition that explores cities' elevated pedestrian walkways, or skyways. He lectures about design and culture and writes for various publications, including DesignObserver.

Mark Foster Gage has taught at Yale University since 2001 and has written about architecture and design for publications including Architectural Design, Journal of Architectural Education, and Perspecta. His work ranges from architectural projects and products to interdisciplinary collaborations, including clothes and concept stores for Lady Gaga, created with fashion designer Nicola Formichetti. His recent books include Composites, Surfaces, and Software (Yale School of Architecture, 2011), for which he was an editor, and Aesthetic Theory (W.W. Norton, 2011).

Toni L. Griffin is professor and director of the J. Max Bond Center for Architecture on Design for the Just City at the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. She also runs the firm Urban Planning and Design for the American City, whose clients include Detroit and Newark, New Jersey. Her previous positions include director community development for Newark, New Jersey; vice president and director of design for the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation in Washington, DC; and deputy director for Revitalization Planning and Neighborhood Planning in Washington, DC.

Fiona Raby is a founding partner of Dunne & Raby, a British design firm established in 1994. She is professor of industrial design at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and a reader in design interactions at the Royal College of Art, London. Dunne & Raby's work has been shown at MoMA, New York; the Pompidou Centre, Paris; and the Science Museum, London; Dunne & Raby's books include Design Noir (Birkhauser, 2001), Hertzian Tales (MIT Press, 2006), and Speculative Everything (MIT Press, forthcoming).

Michael Sorkin is the principal of the Michael Sorkin Studio, in New York, founder of Terreform, a nonprofit devoted to research and intervention in urban planning and sustainability issues, and director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York. He is a contributing editor at Architectural Record and author of several books, including Variations on a Theme Park (Hill and Wang, 1992), Exquisite Corpse (Verso, 1994), and After the World Trade Center (Routledge, 2002), among others.

Event

Counter/Point: MFA Design Criticism Department Conference

SVA Theatre