Dean´s Honorary Lecture
Städelschule Architecture Class (SAC) 

Alejandro Zaera-Polo: Envelopes

The Dean's Honorary Lecture 2012 is given by Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Professor and Dean of Princeton University School of Architecture. Zaera-Polo came to international prominence in 2002 with the completion of the Yokohama Ferry Port Terminal. Since, while being at Foreign Office Architects, and, of recently, since founding Alejandro Zaera-Polo Architecture (AZPA), his work includes projects, such as, Birmingham New Street Redevelopment, Birmingham UK (2007-), BioPol Science Centre in Barcelona, Spain (2011-), Ravensbourne college on the Greenwich Peninsula, London (2005-) and many more. Zaera-Polo has had a prolific theoretical output. Experience with practice has turned his theoretical interest from a materialist critique of architecture to more practical concerns, such as a various forms of production that affects the practice of architecture. This includes looking to globalisation, information technology and organisational structures as well as iconography and representation in the cultural and political role of architecture. His theoretical work has been widely published and includes the book, Phylogenesis: foa’s ark, Actar, Barcelona (2003). The practical and theoretical speculations and experience have been exercised in teaching at schools, such as, Yale University School of Architecture, Princeton University School of Architecture, the AA in London - where he was unit master for eight years, and the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam - where he was the dean from 2002-5. This spring, he was elected Dean of Princeton University School of Architecture.