The 2015-16 academic year introduces new faculty members to several A&AA departments and programs. The professors new to the school bring a wide spectrum of expertise and creativity in architecture, the history of art and architecture, arts and administration, and product design. They come to UO from schools including Istanbul Technical University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Denver, Stanford University, and the University of Minnesota.

Architecture

A&AA is wrapping up its 100th anniversary this month after a full year of events, exhibitions, and celebrations. The school is now embarking on a capital campaign to imagine the future of art and design education and facilities for the next 100 years. In envisioning the school’s future, the A&AA Building Project Work Group in January issued a request for proposals (RFP) from student teams for a competition to design a transformative learning environment for A&AA. In May, the finalists were announced.

The United States Society for Education Through Art has awarded UO Senior Vice Provost Doug Blandy its National Ziegfeld Award for his research in arts education.

The A&AA community continues to take steps toward creating its future home on University Street. The location of the Phase I A&AA building is on the site of the current McArthur Court. To help keep interested constituents and stakeholders informed, a blog has been created to follow the progress of the “Phase I A&AA Learning and Innovation Hub” capital project. Here you can view documents and design studies that outline the design process, including reports, timeline, and correspondence. 

This year’s 10th Annual Art History Graduate Student Symposium at the University of Oregon explores the concept of forgery in the world of art. “Reproducing the Original: The Copy’s Role in the History of Art” is centered on the concepts of authenticity, reproduction, and forgery throughout time.

The April 17-18 event, which includes a keynote speech by Winnie Wong, will take place in Gerlinger and Lawrence Halls on the UO campus.

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art presents a selection of Works Progress Administration (WPA) prints, which have been on long-term loan to the museum from the federal government since 1956. Curated by Merrit Thompson, a senior in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, the exhibition is on view in the Morris Graves Gallery through July 27, 2014. The show supports the Eugene Public Library’s 2014 Big Read (F.

Experimentation in teaching is not new in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.  From the noncompetitive, nongraded studio courses in architecture initiated at the school’s founding to experiments with new media and motion graphics leading to national leadership in digital arts, to pioneering public policy efforts such as Oregon’s land use law, A&AA is a rich environment for trying out new ideas. Enterprising faculty members and students who shared a spirit of collaboration and experimentation and who were not adverse to risk-taking founded the school in 1914. 

The movie “Monuments Men,” which opens in theaters across the country Thursday, February 6, has a direct connection to the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts. The movie tells the story of nearly 350 architects, artists, art historians, curators, and museum directors who joined the U.S. military specifically to save cultural treasures from destruction by the Third Reich in the waning days of World War II. Two of these “art heroes” spent significant time in A&AA: Gordon Gilkey, MFA ’36, and Mark Sponenburgh, who taught art at A&AA from 1946-1957.