Stuckeman School welcomes French architect to Lecture and Exhibit Series

UNIVERSTY PARK, Pa. — Reza Azard, an award-winning French architect and co-founder of the architectural firm Projectiles, will lead off the Stuckeman School’s 2021-22 Lecture and Exhibit Series by reflecting on his practice’s work and its multidisciplinary approach to cultural projects at all scales, from the land to the design of furniture, in “Museum Works” at 6 p.m. on Aug. 25. Azard will give the lecture, which is free and open to the public, remotely from Paris via Zoom.

Those in the local community have the option of watching the event from the Jury Space of the Stuckeman Family Building. A reminder that masking is required in all indoor spaces on campus, regardless of vaccination status, until further notice.

Established in 2005 by Azard, Hervé Bouttet and Daniel Mészáros, Projectiles is based in France and has completed work in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Brazil, Canada and the United States. As a multidisciplinary practice, the firm strives to avoid “architectural signatures,” thus asserting its freedom through architecture, scenography, museography and furniture design on a variety of scales.

Projectiles has several works currently in progress, including the Montblanc House in Hamburg, Germany; MHM Museum in Saint-Malo, France; and the National Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Other recent projects include the D-Day Museum in Arromanches, France; Sensorial Museum of Perfume, Paris; Walloon Folklore Museum in Mouscron, Belgium; and the Cattle Raiser Museum in Fort Worth, Texas.

In 2019, Projectiles was the winner of the Wallonia Architecture Grand Prix in the “Rebuilding on the City” category for its Mouscron Museum, which also was nominated for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award that same year.

The firm’s Lodève Museum received numerous honors, including an Art Directors Club (ADC) of New York Award and the Association of Architects and Project Owners’ (AMO) Prize for the most beautiful metamorphosis, both in 2019. The museum also was a finalist for the European Museum of the Year Award in 2020 and the Prix d'Architecture de l'Équerre d'Argent in 2019.

Azard has been a faculty member at the Versailles National School of Architecture since 2016 and previously taught at École Spéciale d'Architecture in Paris for eight years.

A trained musician, Azard is a graduate of the National Conservatory of Music and Dance and the School of Architecture of Paris de la Villette.

As part of the Department of Architecture’s annual Corbelletti Design Charrette, Azard will help usher in the start of the academic year for upper-level architecture students by presenting a design challenge and serving as a guest juror of the competition. The winner(s) will be announced via Zoom and in the Jury Space of the Stuckeman Family Building at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 17.