Lecture: Marlon Blackwell

Radical Practice

Marlon Blackwell will discuss his architecture and design process and introduce ‘Radical Practice: The Work of Marlon Blackwell Architects’ a new monograph released in 2022. The book and the presentation emphasize projects in the public and civic realm, emerging from outside the established centers of architectural culture, illustrating the distinct and original voice of Marlon Blackwell Architects. Their iconic and award-winning designs span across typologies, scales, and budgets, by merging the universal language of architecture and the particulars of place. The presentation will discuss the richness of the work, its methods, and its consequences and suggest an open-endedness, at once generous and provocative, to the practice’s trajectory and interest in what a “radical practice” can be in the contemporary moment. A core principle at the heart of the practice, radical in its fundamental simplicity, is the assertion of the making of buildings and places as a constant, authentic focus…an architecture in the place, of the place and for the place for anywhere, for anyone with dignity, wonder and joy…

The presentation will discuss the “radical practice” of Marlon Blackwell Architects - the richness of the work, its methods, and its consequences. The assertion of the making of buildings and places as a constant, authentic focus…an architecture in the place, of the place and for the place for anywhere and for anyone.

Marlon Blackwell, FAIA, is the founding partner of Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA) in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the E. Fay Jones Distinguished Professor at the University of Arkansas. Blackwell is the recipient of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, the Institute’s highest honor recognizing those whose work has had an enduring impact on the theory and practice of architecture. He is a lifetime member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2023 inductee of the American Academy of Arts and Science, a 2019 Resident Fellow of the American

Academy in Rome, and a 2014 United States Artists Ford Fellow. Work produced in his professional office has received recognition with significant publication and more than 180 design awards including the 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture. A monograph of his early work, “An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell”, was published in 2005 and a new monograph titled “Radical Practice”, was published in 2022.

https://arch.usc.edu/events/ma...