University Park, Pa. -- The Department of Architecture will kick off "Deviant Decoration: The Architectural Interior," a two-year series of free public lectures and exhibitions, on Monday, April 21, with lectures by notable Belgian architectural theory professor Hildegarde Heynen and emerging professor/architect Sheri Schumacher from Auburn University. The lectures by Heynen and Schumacher, which focus on the domestic interior, will begin at 4 p.m. in the Stuckeman Family Building, first-floor jury space.
The lectures will be followed by a reception at 6 p.m. in the adjacent Willard G. Rouse III Gallery to celebrate the opening of Patchwork Project: A Quilt Studio, which will be on display through August 15. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Schumacher, examines evolving concepts of "home" in the historic and modern vernacular south. Special focus is on a recently built quilt studio, built collaboratively with architecture students, for Mozell Benson, a nationally recognized quilt artist. Benson will be in attendance at the lectures and reception.
Future Deviant Decoration lectures and exhibitions in fall 2008 will focus on ecological design and interior space, while spring 2009 events will center on disability studies in relation to the architectural interior.
The series was made possible with generous support from the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Penn State. Faculty from the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts were also involved during the planning stages of the project. For more information, visit www.arch.psu.edu or contact series director Christine Gorby, associate professor of architecture, at 814-865-3741 or clg15@psu.edu.