Architect David Lewis to Present 'Manual of Section' Lecture, Gallery Talk on April 9

Courtesy of LTL Architects

Sixty-four books are displayed in the "Manual of Section" exhibition. Each book is opened to a different page showing a building that demonstrates one of the seven categories of section.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – David Lewis will present a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Monday, April 9, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall, Room 250 of Vol Walker Hall, on the University of Arkansas campus, as part of the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design Lecture series.

Lewis, AIA, is founding principal of LTL Architects (Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis), in New York, New York, which is a design intensive architecture firm that he founded in 1997 along with his twin brother, Paul Lewis, and Marc Tsurumaki. LTL Architects realizes inventive solutions that turn the very constraints of each project into the design trajectory, exploring opportunistic overlaps between space, program, form, budget and materials. David Lewis is also a professor at Parsons School of Design and an adjunct professor of Architecture at the University of Limerick, Ireland.

In his lecture, titled "Manual of Section," Lewis will discuss the intersection of representation and invention enabled by the architectural sectional drawing. Lewis co-authored the only book written on architectural section to date, Manual of Section (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016), along with the other principals of LTL Architects.

The exhibition based on this book is also on display in Vol Walker Hall through May 22. A gallery talk with Lewis is planned for noon April 9, and an exhibition reception will be held at 5:45 p.m. April 9 following the lecture. 

The lecture will present the work of this first comprehensive book about the role of section in architecture, foregrounding the section not only as a representational technique that is ripe with the ability to demonstrate structure, interior space and form, but also as a key locus of design invention. Conceived as a form of architectural scholarship based on drawings, these cross-section perspectives were produced by archival research that produced a detailed and precise representation of that which cannot be seen. This representational technique foregrounds a comprehensive complexity as the basis of architectural merit, where the abstraction of the section cut intersects with the inhabitation embodied by the perspective.

In addition to Manual of Section, Lewis and the other principals of LTL Architects have written three monographs, Intensities (Princeton Architectural Press, 2013), Opportunistic Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008) and Situation Normal ... Pamphlet Architecture #21 (Princeton Architectural Press, 1998). The work of LTL Architects is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Lewis is a member of the Advisory Council of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University. He received his Master of Architecture from Princeton University, a Master of Arts in the History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Carleton College.

This is the Charles Thompson Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Cromwell Architects Engineers.

The lecture has been approved for health, safety and welfare continuing education credits through the American Institute of Architects.

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

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