Dean Peter MacKeith Contributes Expertise in Two Architecture Books

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Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, has authored and edited two recently published books focused on contemporary architecture and design practice.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture, has authored and edited two recently published books focused on contemporary architecture and design practice, SOM Journal 9 and Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects: Works.

The SOM Journal is an ongoing review of architecture and design history, theory and criticism sponsored by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the largest and most influential architecture, interior design, engineering and urban planning firms in the world. Founded in Chicago in 1936, the firm has completed more than 10,000 projects in more than 50 countries.

Each SOM Journal highlights the year’s best projects by the global practice, as selected by a jury composed of people renowned in architecture, urban design, landscape architecture and design engineering. MacKeith led the international jury process and oversaw the editorial content for SOM Journal 8 and SOM Journal 9, both numbers concerned with contemporary practice and education issues of design leadership and collaboration.

In SOM Journal 9, along with an introduction to the journal’s themes, MacKeith produced a dialogue between renowned artist Olafur Eliasson, of Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, and Helle Søholt, chief executive officer and principal designer at Gehl Architects/Urban Quality Consultants, in Copenhagen. The discussion focuses on their collaborative approaches and interdisciplinary design practices. As well, MacKeith interviewed architectural historian John Harwood of Oberlin College, Sarah Whiting of Rice University and architecture critic Sarah Williams Goldhagen on conceptions of “agency and authorship,” discussing what happens to ideas of “leadership” and “authorship” in the midst of contemporary transformations of architecture and design.

Also this fall, MacKeith published Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects: Works, for which he was both author and editor. The monograph presents the first survey of the contemporary Finnish practice, including projects from the early 1990s to the present day. MacKeith’s introduction discusses the critical themes and design strategies of the firm. Subsequent essays highlight five of the 15 significant public commissions of the partnership, notably the Museum for the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, the Finnish Maritime Center, the Finnish Folk Arts Center and the Finnish Forest Museum. Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects: Works concludes with an interview between MacKeith and the two architects, Rainer Mahlamäki and Ilmari Lahdelma, which discusses the firm’s design method, education, competition designs, museum design and the future of Finnish architecture.

“These books are the product of between three and five years of work, outside of my academic and administrative responsibilities,” MacKeith said, “but they are both extensions of my focus on architecture and design education and on conditions of contemporary architecture practice. As such, both publications are immediately valuable for me in my new position as dean of the Fay Jones School.”

SOM Journal 9, published by Hatje Cantz, and Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects: Works, published by Rakennustieto: The Finnish Building Information Center, are now available for purchase.