Design Educator Juhani Pallasmaa to Present 'Empathic and Embodied Imagination' Lecture on Sept. 30

Photo by Kaj Lindholm

Moduli 225 Industrial Vacation House System, 1968-72. (Courtesy of Juhani Pallasmaa)

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Juhani Pallasmaa will present a lecture titled "Empathic and Embodied Imagination: Intuiting Life and Experience in Architecture" at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design lecture series.

In this lecture, Pallasmaa will discuss how architectural projects are products of imagination and how imagination plays a role in the design process. The different levels of imagination will be discussed, and the idea of contemporary architecture as being emotionally distant will be challenged.

Pallasmaa is an architect and professor emeritus at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. He has been practicing architectural design since 1962 and had his own office in Helsinki from 1983-2012. Since 1994, he has been a visiting professor at several institutions, including Yale University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Virginia, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and the Catholic University of America at Washington, D.C. He has also lectured and taught at several other universities in the United States, Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia.

Pallasmaa also has been the rector of the Institute of Industrial Design, director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture and professor and dean of the School of Architecture at Aalto University.

He has published 45 books and 350 essays, and his writings have been translated into more than 30 languages. His books deal with psychology, philosophy and theory of arts and architecture. Some of his best-known books are: The Embodied Image (2011), The Thinking Hand (2009) and Understanding Architecture (2012, in collaboration with Robert McCarter).  

Pallasmaa has served as a member of several doctoral committees and as an opponent at dissertations in Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Chile. He has also been a member of several juries in architectural, product design and art competitions in Finland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Spain, Russia and Australia.

He has received numerous Finnish and international awards, prizes and five Honorary Doctorates in Finland, Estonia, the United States and Romania. He is an honorary member of Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA), The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and is an Academician of the International Academy of Architecture.

This lecture is the 2015 Dean's Lecture in Nordic Architecture, in promotion of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program.

The public is invited to attend. Admission is free, with limited seating.

For more information, contact 479-575-4704 or architecture.uark.edu.