CLASS TALK @ The School of Design Strategies | Urban Theory Lab

ALESSANDRA CIANCHETTA/ AWP Paris

Tuesday, March 11, 7pm
66 5th Avenue, 6th floor, Room 603

Alessandra Cianchetta is an architect, urbanist, and founding partner of AWP, Paris, the award-winning practice –an “agence de reconfiguration territoriale”– that works across scales and genres: from the 160 ha strategic masterplan for the Paris CBD to pavilions, landscapes, interiors, exhibitions and publications. AWP’s work is regularly presented at venues worldwide such as Maxxi, Cité de l’Architecture and MoMA, and has been featured in NY Times, Le Monde, Wallpaper and Architese. Currently visiting critic and adjunct professor at Cornell University, Columbia University and The Berlage, Alessandra gives equal weight to the substance of building and its intangible effects, addressing sensual and perceptual experiences at large urban scales.

Current works include a 85,000 square-metre housing and mixed-use
sector project in Lausanne, which will transform the landscape of the city, a 70,000 square-metre public space adjoining the Grande Arche de la Défense, including a unique series of new buildings, the masterplan of Paris’ CBD, and Poissy Galore, a sequence of public buildings and follies set in a park by the Seine. Alessandra is regularly selected for high profile invited international competitions and has curated and designed exhibitions for cultural institutions such as the City of Architecture and Heritage and Pavillon de l’Arsenal in Paris, Fondazione Adriano Olivetti in Rome, and the Collegi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, Barcelona, among others. Her publications include Nightscapes, Nocturnal Landscapes (Gustavo Gili, 2009), Alvaro Siza: Private Houses 1954–2004 (Skira 2004), and Park Güell (Gustavo Gili, 2002).