The Structure of Places: The Sea Ranch

Max Abramovitz Distinguished Lecture

Thursday, April 1, 2004
7:00 P.M. - Lawrence J. Plym Auditorium
Temple Hoyne Buell Hall

Donlyn Lyndon

This lecture will consider the structure of places - spaces that we can hold in the mind. It will propose elements and relationships that help to give them identity, and consider ways in which they enter into our lives. The Sea Ranch, a place on the northern California cast established forty years ago, will be examined within this framework; citing the initial organizing ideas, the development of the initial exemplary buildings, the formulation of of design and planning standards, their management, and the nature of its ongoing evolution, including the assessment of many buildings that have contributed well to the character of the place.

About the Lecturer

Donlyn Lyndon FAIA, Eva Li Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, is an architect whose buildings and urban design projects have received many awards and extensive publication. He is the Editor of the design journal PLACES and a member of the Urban Places Design Group at Berkeley.

Lyndon is author of The City Observed: Boston, co-author of Chambers for a Memory Palace (MIT Press), The Place of Houses (UC Press), and most recently The Sea Ranch, with photographs by Jim Alinder (Princeton Architectural Press). Throughout his career he has been a teacher, and he has served as Head of the Departments of Architecture at MIT and the University of Oregon, as well as Chair of the Department of Architecture at Berkeley.

In 1996 The Sea Ranch Condominium, which his original firm, Moore Lyndon Turnbull Whitaker (MLTW), designed in 1964, received the prestigious Twenty-five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects. In 1997 Lyndon was designated Topaz Laureate by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and of the Urban Design Institute and a member of the Board of the International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design, centered in Milan. In 2003 he was a recipient of the Seaside Prize for contributions to urbanism.