Amanda Levete: A Tale of Two Museums

Architect Amanda Levete, founder of AL_A, will discuss two prominent cultural projects: the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum Exhibition Road Quarter and the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT).

• For London’s V&A, AL_A created a new entrance, public space, and gallery—the museum’s largest building initiative in more than a century. Awarded through a competition, the project features the world’s first porcelain courtyard.
• MAAT is a low-slung, tile-clad building that invites visitors onto its roof, creating a major new public amenity on the banks of Lisbon’s Tagus River.

Levete trained at the Architectural Association and worked for Richard Rogers before joining Future Systems as a partner in 1989, realizing ground-breaking buildings including the Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground and Selfridges department store in Birmingham. In 2009 she founded AL_A.

Levete frequently contributes to radio and television programs and writes for major publications, and has lectured around the world. For over a decade she served as a trustee for influential London nonprofits the Young Foundation and Artangel.

A winner of the Stirling Prize and the Jane Drew Prize, she was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2017.

Current AL_A projects include:

• Galeries Lafayette, Paris, France
• Maggie’s Centre, Southampton, UK
• Wadham College, Oxford, UK
• The Courtyard, Moscow, Russia

This lecture is co-sponsored by The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union.