Cocktails & Conversation: Thom Mayne and Winka Dubbeldam

Detail of a building designed by Thom Mayne

Cocktails & Conversation, organized by AiA New York, is a series of dialogues about design that joins an architect with a critic, journalist, curator, or architectural historian to discuss current architecture design issues. This program will feature Thom Mayne and Winka Dubbeldam in conversation over a custom cocktail.

Founder of the award-winning firm Morphosis, Thom Mayne, will join with architect and educator Winka Dubbeldam to discuss his explorations in research and design, as described in his recent book, Strange Networks. Thom Mayne has been honored with the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the AIA’s Gold Medal (2013). Winka Dubbeldam is founder of her firm, Archi-Techtonics, and serves as the Chair of Architecture at the Weizman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.

Speaker:
Thom Mayne, FAIA, Founding Partner, Morphosis

Moderator:
Winka Dubbeldam, Assoc. AIA, Founder and Partner, Archi-Tectonics; Chair, Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania

About the Speakers:
Thom Mayne is founding partner of Morphosis, an interdisciplinary and collective architecture and planning practice established in 1972. Mayne’s distinguished honors include the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (2013). He was appointed to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 2009 to 2016. In 1972, he cofounded the Southern California Institute of Architecture, where he continues to lead the NOW Institute, a graduate-level think tank for urban sustainability and resilience. Mayne has held teaching positions at various institutions around the world, including Columbia, Yale, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, and the University of Pennsylvania. He was a Distinguished Professor at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design from 1993 to 2018.  In 2020, he published Strange Networks (Rizzoli), a monograph highlighting his exploration of combinatory systems. This investigation continues at Stray Dog Café, Mayne’s personal art and research space at Morphosis, where he leads his team of young designers and students on research projects, the creation of artworks, and the development of publications that document their creative output. SFMOMA, MoMA, and Chicago Art Institute, among others, hold artworks produced throughout his career.

Winka Dubbeldam founded her firm Archi-Tectonics in 1994. She has been widely celebrated for award-winning work and design excellence in the use of smart building systems, hybrid sustainable materials, and innovative research. Her work includes the award-winning 512GW townhouse and the 497 GW building in Manhattan, as well as the master plan and several buildings (including two stadiums) for the 116-acre Asian Games 2022 in Hangzhou, China. Dubbeldam is also an academic leader and is currently Miller Professor and Chair of Architecture at the Stuart Weizman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as External Examiner at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL London. Her work has been featured at the Center for Architecture, MoMA, the Venice Biennale, MoCa, Storefront for Art and Architecture, and the Tel Aviv Museum, among others, and in solo exhibitions at the Taylor Gallery NY, the Kunsthal Rotterdam, the AEDES Gallery in Berlin, among others.