VIRTUAL lECTURE SERIES
PRESENTED BY CRANBROOK CENTER FOR COLLECTIONS AND RESEARCH
Lecturer: Kevin Adkisson, Curator, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research
$85 for Adults; $25 for Full-time Students with ID
Free for Cranbrook Students (register by emailing center@cranbrook.edu)
Advance Registration Required (Fee includes all five lectures)
This lecture series is eligible for American Institute of Architects Continuing Education Credits (AIA/CES).
Join Kevin Adkisson for the return of the Center's popular History of American Architecture lecture series. The eighth annual installment will study utopias, and their role in shaping modern architecture.
What is utopia? Why have successive generations of architects, planners, philosophers, and polymaths envisioned or attempted to build utopia? From the Renaissance to Colonial America and through to Silicone Valley, the search for a more harmonious existence between citizens, nature, and architecture is a perenially rich problem. In this series, we will examine ideal cities and model suburbs; religious and educational experiments; communal, egalitarian, and intentional communities; and political and environmental renegades. Utopian visions have given form to radical experimentation in architecture. Even if utopia itself remains elusive, the wider field of architecture and design has been repeatedly shaped by the search for the perfect society.
Each week will introduce a new utopias--from ideas and plans to buildings and entire cities--in a 75-minute, image-rich lecture that draws from the resources of Cranbrook Academy of Art Library and Cranbrook Archives. All are welcome to attend this engaging series: students, curious beginners, seasoned enthusiasts, or design professionals.
ABOUT KEVIN ADKISSON
Center Curator Kevin Adkisson works on preservation, interpretation, and programming across the many buildings and treasures of Cranbrook. Since arriving as a Collections Fellow in 2016, Kevin has welcomed thousands of guests to Cranbrook’s National Historic Landmark campus, both in person and virtually. Through tours, lectures, and online programming, Kevin makes history come alive with a friendly, humorous nature, and deep passion for art and architecture. Kevin serves as the first curator of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House, a 2017 gift to Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research from The Towbes Foundation and Anne Smith Towbes.
Raised in Marietta, Georgia, and introduced to architecture through the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Kevin earned his BA in Architecture from Yale, where he worked for four years at the Yale University Art Gallery’s Furniture Study. Kevin received his MA from the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, with a thesis examining the role of postmodernism in Jon Jerde’s shopping mall architecture.
Before coming to Cranbrook, Kevin worked for Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) in New York as a research and writing associate. At RAMSA, he assisted design teams in researching historical reference imagery to be used in the design of the firm’s signature modern-traditionalist aesthetic. He also assisted in image research for Stern’s books, Paradise Planned: The Garden Suburb and the Modern City (2013) and Pedagogy and Place: 100 Years of Architecture Education at Yale (2016). Kevin Adkisson also worked at Kent Bloomer Studio in New Haven, Connecticut, on the design and fabrication of architectural ornament.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
The History of American Architecture Lecture Series is presented by Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. The fee includes admission to all five lectures. Although the lectures build on each other, attendance at all five lectures is not required. Regretfully, discounted tickets cannot be sold to individual lectures and admission cannot be transferred to other people.
The lectures will begin promptly at their scheduled times and will be followed by a ten-minute Q&A session. The morning and evening lecture will be the same. A supplemental reading list will be provided after the lecture series; there are no written assignments or evaluations.
In-person attendees may choose to attend the lectures virtually. Unfortunately, due to space limitations, virtual ticket holders may not attend in-person lectures.
This lecture series is eligible for American Institute of Architects Continuing Education credits (AIA/CES). The lecture series is only eligible for Elective credits (not Health, Safety, and Welfare units). Each lecture is one Learning Unit (LUs), for a total of five LUs for Elective credits. AIA members must log into aia.org to self-report their education. Paper forms are not accepted or used by AIA CES. Please call your local AIA chapter for more information.
INFORMATION FOR VIRTUAL ATTENDEES
On the Friday prior to the lecture date, registered participants will receive an email with instructions on how to join this virtual experience. A reminder will be sent one hour prior to the start of the lecture. We are limited in the number of virtual “seats” and each registration is unique. Please do not share the login link with others. We appreciate your support of the Center by purchasing tickets for each viewer in your household.
INFORMATION FOR IN-PERSON ATTENDEES
Cranbrook Art Museum is accessed through Cranbrook’s main entrance at 39221 Woodward Avenue. Free parking is available on the east side of the Art Museum and in the parking deck located midway between Cranbrook Art Museum and Cranbrook Institute of Science. Access to deSalle Auditorium will be through Cranbrook Academy Library, on the west side of the Art Museum Peristyle. Attendees that would like access to the Art Museum’s barrier-free entrance (through the New Studios Buildings) will need to make advance arrangements with the Center the week before each lecture by emailing center@cranbrook.edu.
SNOWDAY PLAN
In case of snow or inclement weather, the in-person lecture will be held live online via Zoom. If the in-person option needs to be cancelled, registered attendees will be sent an email by 3:00pm on the day of the lecture. If Cranbrook Schools are closed for the day, or close early, the evening in-person option also will be cancelled and attendees will be sent a link to attend the virtual lecture.
For additional information in advance of the lecture, please email center@cranbrook.edu or call the Center at 248.645.3307.
PHOTO CREDITS
Banner Image: The Ideal City - Urbino, Piero della Francesca, circa 1480. Oil on panel, 26.6 inches x 94.2 inches, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche Urbino; Retrieved from cgfa.sunsite.dk.
Rendering of Houston-Variations Project, HOME-OFFICE (Daniel Jacobs, Brittany Utting), 2022; Courtesy of HOME-OFFICE.
Kevin Adkisson, December 2024; Photography by Ayako Aratani, CAA Studio Manager, Industrial Design; Courtesy Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research.
Foundry Apse, West Housing, and the Vaults of Arcosanti, Paolo Soleri, circa 1973, Yavapai County, Arizona; Courtesy of the Cosanti Foundation.
Radburn Garden Homes, City Housing Corporation, 1927, Radburn, New Jersey; Courtesy of Rockefeller Archive Center.