UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Stuckeman School in the College of Arts and Architecture has partnered with WPSU to launch its Spring Virtual Lecture Series at 6 p.m. on Jan. 27 with Pablo Castro, co-founder of Obra Architects and an American Institute of Architects Fellow, as the guest.
The title of the lecture is "Obra's Journal of Indulgences, or, How Everything We Might Possibly Attempt This Year Seems Trivial Compared To What Is Happening To Those Less Fortunate Than Us And How Might Architecture Be Understood As Not Only Useful But Absolutely Essential To Our Collective Survival."
Castro formed Obra in 2000 in New York City with Jennifer Lee. The firm’s recent and ongoing work includes a community pavilion atop a rooftop in the Seohyun commercial district of Seoul, private residences in Chevy Chase and Potomac, Maryland, a special commission for the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, the Korean Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. and a multi-unit affordable housing project for seniors in the Bronx, New York.
Obra is active both nationally and internationally. Completed work abroad includes a kindergarten for 540 schoolchildren in Beijing, the design of the main exhibition for the first Seoul Architecture Biennale, and an ongoing residential development in Argentina.
The firm has produced a body of award-winning projects recognized by the AIA, the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards, and the Architectural League of New York, among others. The work of Obra has been exhibited widely and has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, National Art Museum of China, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Rhode Island School of Design and Architektur Galerie Berlin.
Winner of the 2006 PS1 MoMA Young Architects Program, Obra also participated in the International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy in 2014 and 2016, and received the 2014 Kim Swoo Geun Preview Prize as well as its sixth AIA New York Design Award. The firm’s most recent book, "Obra Architects Logic," was published in Copenhagen in 2016.
Hosted by the School’s Department of Architecture, the virtual event is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is required via https://bit.ly/castro-p.