z Karen Van Lengen ’69 2010 Distinguished Alumna Award Recipient by Regina Mooney “Architecture gives shape to the fabric of our democracy.” Stated by Karen Van Lengen when she appeared on the Charlie Rose Show on Public Television in 2006, these words clarify a grounding principle of her work as an architect and point us toward the spaces that give us our public identities. As professor and former dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, Van Lengen teaches how our public spaces define who we are as a nation and how our individual or private identities are shaped by the spaces we create and inhabit.
The Bulletin Spring 2010
Karen Van Lengen’s creative vision and thoughtful articulation, verbally and on the drafting table, make her an architect of stature who early in her career won an international competition to design the Berlin American Memorial Library. Recognized for her work, she was invited to compete for Berlin’s proposal for the 1992 Olympic Stadiums. An intellectual descendent of Hans Schauroon, Alvar Aalto and I.M. Pei, Van Lengen designs aesthetic environments that promote the enhancement of our multiple senses as a way to invigorate both the social and physical experiences of our public realm. She strongly believes that thoughtful architectural design should respond to a wide range of issues that include the stewardship of our landscapes, our biodiversity and our resources in the context of a democratic society that continues to be nurtured by the local spaces and opportunities for human interaction and communication.
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As a member of the Stoneleigh-Burnham Class of 1969, Karen started out at Mary A. Burnham and joined that pioneering class that merged the two schools. At both Burnham and StoneleighBurnham she was known as serious-minded and levelheaded, making her an ideal candidate for Vassar College where she majored in psychology and graduated cum laude and with departmental honors in psychology. She later co-authored a book with Lisa Reilly on the college’s architecture. From Vassar she pursued her architectural studies at Columbia University,
and apprenticed with I.M. Pei, world famous architect and design innovator. With him she designed the first hotel built in China after President Nixon’s famous visit that opened up relations between the two countries. After a Fulbright Fellowship in Rome, she returned to New York and opened her own architectural firm while teaching as a guest critic in several noteworthy institutions. She was later tapped to lead the Architectural Department of The Parsons School of Design in New York. Her articles have been published in scholarly journals and popular magazines including Architectural Design Publication, Dwell Magazine, Ladies Home Journal and The Journal of Architectural Education, demonstrating the breadth of her audience and appeal. As her work has evolved Karen now designs spaces that explore the role of technology in public and private space. The Mix House, a recent polemical project completed in collaboration with Joel Sanders, explored the role of sound in the domestic environment. I asked her to explain the design to my untrained design mind and she quipped after the explanation that it is as simple as it is complex. Indeed it is, although I found myself reeling in my own process of unraveling the complexity as I studied her drawings. Brilliant, gracious, demanding, and imminently approachable, Karen Van Lengen represents the best of Stoneleigh-Burnham School. Indeed she embodies our mission statement’s exhortation to “become our best selves.” Yet if you are to ask her if she’s there yet, she’d tell you there are many more ideas to pursue, buildings to design and problems to solve in a world that needs many more integrative thinkers. For her intrepid spirit and creative mind, Stoneleigh-Burnham School is proud and delighted to bestow our inaugural Distinguished Alumna Award on innovator, friend, classmate, sister alumna and international role model, Karen Van Lengen. v