Global shortlist revealed for troubled school
The AA has announced the names of the three architects shortlisted to become the new director of its school.
They are Robert Mull, former dean of the Cass who resigned after London Met dismantled the institution, Eva Franch i Gilabert, chief curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York, and Pippo Ciorra, senior curator at the Zaha Hadid-designed MAXXI in Rome.
The three will stand for election next week, immediately after they each give a presentation to the AA school community and answer questions.
All current students, academics and administrative staff as well as members of the AA’s governing council are eligible to vote.
The AA has been at the centre of an international storm in recent weeks after the council and interim director Samantha Hardingham announced a round of redundancies which they said were necessary to get the organisation on a sound financial footing.
Critics, including Richard Rogers, David Adjaye and Rem Koolhaas, warned cuts to the AA’s cultural side would threaten the future of the whole institution.
The shortlist of potential directors was put together by the AA’s search committee which consists of eight elected members of the school community and three members appointed by the AA council.
The committee said its call for applications was “extremely positive”.
The new director is set to be appointed around the start of March.
Hardingham temporarily replaced Brett Steele in August 2017 when he left to take up a new post as head of the arts school at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Shortlist for AA director
Pippo Ciorra
Pippo Ciorra is the Senior Curator of MAXXI Architettura in Rome, an architect, critic and professor. He currently teaches design and theory at SAAD (University of Camerino) and is the director of the international PhD program ‘Villard d’Honnecourt’ (IUAV). In 2016, he co-curated the exhibition The Japanese House: Architecture and Life After 1945, which was exhibited at MAXXI, the Barbican in London and the MOMAT museum in Tokyo. His major exhibitions on contemporary architecture include Re-cycle, Energy, Erasmus Effect, Food.
Eva Franch i Gilabert
Eva Franch i Gilabert is an architect, curator, educator and lecturer. Since 2010, Franch has been the Chief Curator and Executive Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. In 2014, Franch, with the project OfficeUS, an experimental office for the production of history, ideas and work, was selected by the US State Department to represent the United States at the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale. Franch is currently a professor at The Cooper Union School of Architecture.
Robert Mull
Robert Mull is a Professor of Architecture and Design and Head of School at the University of Brighton. He is also the Director of Innovation at London-based urban design practice Publica. In 2000, he became head of the then UNL School of Architecture and in 2010 led the bringing together of two faculties to form The Cass (Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design) at London Metropolitan University. Robert is a trustee of the Architecture Foundation and of the London School of Architecture.
Source: AA
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