Sir Banister Fletcher Visiting Professorship
The Bartlett School of Architecture 2015
Sir Banister ‘Flight’ Fletcher (1866–1953) was an English architect and architectural historian. He trained at King’s College London and University College London, and joined his father’s practice (also Sir Banister Fletcher) in 1884, also studying at the Royal Academy Schools, the Architectural Association, and the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Father and son co-authored the seminal textbook A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (London: Athlone Press, University of London, 1896- [issued serially], first single-volume edition, London: B.T. Batsford and New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1896). In his will, he left a bequest to The Bartlett School of Architecture inaugurating an annual student prize, the Sir Banister Fletcher Medal, in memory of his father, brother and himself, and a bequest to provide funds for an academic chair, now inaugurated as a Visiting Professorship. This year’s Sir Banister Fletcher Visiting Professor was distinguished architect, writer, and teacher Dr Emmanuel Petit. Dr Petit has taught at Yale, Harvard, and MIT as Associate Professor and Visiting Associate Professor. He received his PhD and MA from Princeton University, and an MSc in architecture from the Swiss Federal Institute in Zurich (ETH). He is author of Irony, or The Self-Critical Opacity of Postmodern Architecture (2013), supported by the Graham Foundation and nominated by Princeton for the 2013 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities; editor of Reckoning with Colin Rowe: Ten Architects Take Position (forthcoming 2015); Schlepping through Ambivalence: Writings on an American Architectural Condition (2011); and Philip Johnson: The Constancy of Change (2009). Petit has curated exhibitions on Peter Eisenman, Jim Stirling, and Stanley Tigerman; he has published on topics relating to architectural theory, formalism, and postmodernity in international journals, including Architectural Review, JSAH, Perspecta, Harvard Design Magazine, JAE, LOG, The Journal of Architecture, Archithese, Project. As part of his Visiting Professorship at The Bartlett School of Architecture Dr Petit gave three Sir Banister Fletcher Lectures: Under the Dome: The Architecture of an Other Modernity In Spheres Air of Utopia The Sir Banister Fletcher Visiting Professorship 2015-16 will be announced this Summer. Bartlett lectures can be viewed online: bit.ly/bartlettlectures
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