Dietrich Neumann

Professor of European Modernism, Brown University, Providence, RI

Thursday, November 15, 2007
6:00 P.M. - Lawrence J. Plym Auditorium
Temple Hoyne Buell Hall

Alan K. and Leonarda F. Laing Lecture

Professor Neumann will talk about the "Architecture of the Night," the subject of a praised international exhibition he curated for the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart and the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, where it was shown until May 2007. His lecture will address the history of architectural illumination since the introduction of electric light as a "new building material." Professor Neumann will speak about the interesting debates that accompanied this development and discuss both historic and contemporary examples including the pivotal Chicago Tribune building, whose architect Raymond Hood coined the phrase "architecture of the night."

Dietrich Neumann is a professor of the history of modern architecture at Brown University and the Vincent Scully Visiting Professor at Yale University School of Architecture. He holds degrees in architecture and a Ph.D. in architectural history from the Technical University, Munich. His research interests are rich and varied and range through the architecture of the last 200 years, the influence of building materials on architectural forms, and the visionary and ephemeral in architecture.

His publications include books about the history of German skyscrapers ('Die Wolkenkratzer kommen!' Deutsche Hochhäuser der zwanziger Jahre, 1995), film set design (Film Architecture: Set Design from Metropolis to Blade Runner, 1996), architectural illumination (Architecture of the Night, 2002), and Richard Neutra (Richard Neutra's Windshield House, 2001) as well as essays on historic building technologies, architectural education and individual architects. His children's book Joe and the Skyscraper (1999) has been published in three languages. Most recently, he has just finished a new contextual biography of Mies van der Rohe (forthcoming from Phaidon); it includes a previously unknown design by Mies in Wiesbaden, Germany. Professor Neumann has also curated several major exhibitions, of which "Illuminated Buildings/Architecture of the Night" is the latest.

Professor Neumann has received numerous prestigious awards and fellowships. They include: the Society of Architectural Historians Founder's Award in 1995 and its Philip Johnson Award in 2003, fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Canadian Center for Architecture, and the Vincent Scully Visiting Professorship in Architectural History at Yale University's School of Architecture, which he currently holds. And not least, he has won teaching awards at Brown University four times, most recently last year.

Professor Neumann has been a director of the Society of Architectural Historians for nine years. He is currently first vice president of the society and is the organizer of the society's annual meetings in Pittsburgh (2007) and Cincinnati (2008).