The College has developed an ambitious program of lectures, exhibits and conferences for the enrichment of students and local professionals. This includes the following annual events:

RAOUL WALLENBERG LECTURE
Raoul Wallenberg, a 1935 graduate of the University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning, has been called one of this century’s most outstanding heroes. In 1944, as First Secretary of the Swedish delegation in Budapest, he is credited with saving more than 100,000 Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis. The following year, Wallenberg was captured by the Russians. Although his fate is unknown, rumors persist that he is held in Russia even today.

To honor and remember this outstanding alumnus, Sol King, a former classmate of Wallenberg’s, initiated the Wallenberg Lecture Series in 1971. In 1976, an endowment was established to ensure that an annual lecture be offered in Wallenberg’s honor focusing on architecture as a humane social art. The lecture annually honors an individual whose legendary acts of compassion exemplify the power of an individual to make a difference.

Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Sculpture at Taubman College

JOHN DINKELOO MEMORIAL LECTURE
John Dinkeloo graduated from the College in 1942 and became one of its most distinguished alumni. He was a gifted architect, an outstanding designer and an enthusiastic student of materials. He was also an inventor, who in the course of designing, developed the neoprene gasket, several different types of glass and cladding systems as well as pioneering the use of Corten and exposed steel. In many ways he epitomizes a spirit of inspired invention and design of which the College is extraordinarily proud.

As a partner of Eero Saarinen, he helped design a number of significant projects, including the Jefferson Memorial Arch in St. Louis, the Morse and Stiles Colleges at Yale University, and the TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport and the Dulles International Airport in Washington D.C. In 1961, he formed a partnership with Kevin Roche and went on to build a reputation of international standing with the design of projects such as the Oakland Museum, the headquarters for John Deere and the Ford Foundation Building in New York.

The first Memorial Lecture was given in 1984 with the generous support of an endowment created by faculty and friends and through the help of John’s widow, Thelma Dinkeloo. She has encouraged the College to look across the wide field of architecture and to search out designers who are working internationally to develop ideas and concepts with the same fervor that her late husband demonstrated.

GUIDO A. BINDA EXHIBIT AND LECTURE
The Guido A. Binda Lecture Series was established at the College in 1997 to bring special lecturers to campus on an annual basis for the benefit of students, faculty and the public. Alumnus Guido Binda, BSAA’31, maintained a distinguished architectural practice in western Michigan specializing in the design of public school buildings.

CHARLES & RAY EAMES LECTURE
The Charles & Ray Eames Lecture Series is an annual event at the College which celebrates design and the Eames legacy. It is sponsored by Herman Miller, Inc. of Zeeland, Michigan, manufacturer of Eames furniture designs for almost 50 years. Nearly everyone has sat in a chair designed by the Eames but their influence goes far beyond the “potato chip” chair. Charles Eames came to the Cranbrook Academy of Art at the invitation of the famous Finnish architect Eliel Saarnien, who taught at UM before his Cranbrook design responsibilities. At Cranbrook, where Charles and Ray met and married, Eames set up a department of experimental design in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Not only did the Eames influence furniture design, but they researched practical methods for molding plywood, aluminum and wire chairs for mass production. They also created the first wave of multimedia presentations using multiple images and multi-sensory stimuli.

Internationally renowned architects, critics and urban design scholars who have recently lectured and exhibited at the College include:

• Michael Benedikt, University of Texas, Austin
• Daniel Solomon, San Francisco
• Michael Sorkin, New York
• Daniel Libeskind, Berlin
• Michael Rotondi, ROTO Architects, Los Angeles
• John Paktau, Patkau Architects, Vancouver
• Mary Ann Thompson and Charles Rose, Boston
• Thom Mayne, Morphosis, Santa Monica
• Steve Christer and Margaret Hardardottir, Studio Granda, Reykjavik
• Richard Sennet, New York University
• Zaha Hadid, London
• Denise Scott Brown, Venturi Scott Brown Associates, Philadelphia
• Susan Fainstein, Rutgers University

Faculty and students also plan and organize educational conferences, symposia and meetings that draw regional, national and international audiences. Professionals and scholars from around the world regularly visit the College serving as critics, jurors and seminar leaders. Individual faculty members conduct field trips to major urban centers and other notable sites and buildings as part of our instructional programs.

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