Dean Peter MacKeith Sponsors Nordic Architecture Lecture Program at Four Design Schools

Photo Submitted

Finnish architect Janne Terasvirta is the inaugural speaker in a new Nordic architecture lecture program sponsored by Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A new lecture program sponsored by Peter MacKeith, dean of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas, seeks to focus the spotlight on a culture and area of architectural design with which he’s very familiar.

A few years after completing his Master of Architecture at Yale University School of Architecture, MacKeith received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research on Alvar Aalto, a Finnish architect. Rather than the 10 months he expected to spend in Finland, he remained there for 10 years, practicing and teaching at the University of Helsinki. Due to the profound impact that scholarship and experience had on him, he decided to promote the legacy of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program through a lecture series focused in Nordic architecture.

As part of this program, Janne Teräsvirta, a founding partner of ALA Architects Ltd., based in Helsinki, Finland, will present a lecture at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10, at the Fay Jones School of Architecture, in Ken and Linda Sue Shollmier Hall in Vol Walker Hall. Teräsvirta gave the inaugural lecture in this program Oct. 31 at the University of Virginia School of Architecture.

Elizabeth Meyer, dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, said the lecture there was very well received. “Janne’s account of the first 10 years of ALA’s practice, starting with the design competition for the Kilden Performing Arts Centre in Kristiansand, Norway, was extremely inspiring to our faculty and students. We are eager to be part of this lecture series with other architecture schools that Peter MacKeith has been associated with, as we anticipate the collective effect of so many excellent Nordic architects on the aspirations and ambitions of our students.”

The overall Fulbright Lecture in Nordic Architecture program has been established, through MacKeith's financial gift, at the Fay Jones School of Architecture, in conjunction with the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences; at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis; at Yale University School of Architecture; and at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. This program is done in collaboration with the Fulbright Center-Finland and parallel organizations in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

The sponsorship funds a lecture to be given annually as part of the respective lecture series at each of the four schools of architecture. This will be given by a selected architect or designer from one of the five Nordic nations, as a four-school lecture tour, with the schedule arranged in collaboration between the four designated schools. It also will be arranged at each school such that the Fulbright Fellowship program at each university can be promoted to students of architecture and design at the time of the lecture.

“The significance of Sen. Fulbright’s vision of peace through international education exchange cannot be underestimated in the contemporary moment,” MacKeith said. “The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program transformed my life, as did my experience in Finland and, indeed, the Nordic region. It is an honor to be able to support both the continuing reach of the Fulbright Program and the vitality of Nordic architecture at the four universities that have defined my academic career. To initiate this upon arrival at the University of Arkansas is to truly come full circle in my life.”