Architect Peter Rich Delivers Lecture at Arkansas Arts Center on Nov. 15

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The Mapungubwe Interpretive Center, in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique, designed by Peter Rich Architects.

South African architect Peter Rich will present the lecture “Learnt in Translation” on Tuesday, Nov. 15, at the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. Ninth St., in Little Rock. The 6 p.m. lecture will be preceded by a 5:30 p.m. reception.

Rich will draw on his extensive personal and professional archive to shed light on the process, thinking and inspiration behind his work.

A practicing architect and Professor of Architecture at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rich has long been interested in the architecture of native African peoples. He has devoted much of his career to exploring the ways in which its expression, while responsive to conditions of climate and place, has traditionally served human need. Though schooled in the Western canon, Rich is most noted for producing work that is a fusion of modernist and vernacular architecture, the latter as it abounds in indigenous South African communities. Believing that ordinary people are most in need of his services, Rich has devoted much of his career to working with them.

Rich is currently serving as John G. Williams Visiting Professor of Architecture in the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.

Rich received the 2009 World Building of the Year Award for his design of the Mapungubwe Interpretive Center, in the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique. The structure, built with native materials, takes its inspiration from regional architectural forms. In 2010, he was awarded a gold medal by the South African Institute of Architects.

This event is part of the Architecture and Design Network’s Art of Architecture Lecture Series. It is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Architecture and Design Network, with the support of the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Arkansas Arts Center and the Fay Jones School of Architecture.