Possible Worlds: The UCLA – Berggruen Institute Speaker Series is a new partnership between the UCLA Division of Humanities and the Berggruen Institute.
About Alejandro Aravena
Alejandro Aravena is an architect, founder and executive director of the firm Elemental. His works include the “Siamese Towers” at the Catholic University of Chile and the Novartis office campus in Shanghai. In 2016, the New York Times named Aravena one of the world’s “creative geniuses” who had helped define culture. He and Elemental have received numerous honors, including the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the 2015 London Design Museum’s Design of the Year award and the 2011 Index Award. Aravena currently serves as the president of the Pritzker Prize jury. Aravena’s lecture title, “How Will We Live Together?” echoes the theme of the upcoming international architecture exhibition, Biennale Architettura, in which Elemental will be participating.
Featuring a discussion with moderator Dana Cuff
Dana Cuff is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she is also Director of cityLAB, an award-winning think tank that advances goals of spatial justice through experimental urbanism and architecture (www.cityLAB.aud.ucla.edu). Since receiving her Ph.D. in Architecture from Berkeley, Cuff has published and lectured widely about affordable housing, the architectural profession, and Los Angeles’ urban history. She is author of several books, including The Provisional City about postwar housing in L.A., and a co-authored book called Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City, documenting her collaborative, crossdisciplinary research and teaching at UCLA funded by the Mellon Foundation. Based on cityLAB’s design research, Cuff co-authored landmark legislation that permits “backyard homes” on some 8.1 million single-family properties, doubling the density of suburbs across California (AB 2299, Bloom-2016). In 2019, cityLAB opened a satellite center in the MacArthur Park/Westlake neighborhood where a deep, multi-year exchange with community organizations is already demonstrating ways that humanistic design of the public realm can create more compassionate cities. Cuff recently received three awards that describe her career: Women in Architecture Activist of the Year (2019, Architectural Record); Distinguished Leadership in Architectural Research (2020, ARCC); and Educator of the Year (2021, American Institute of Architects Los Angeles).
About the Series
Possible Worlds: The UCLA – Berggruen Institute Speaker Series is a new partnership between the UCLA Division of Humanities and the Berggruen Institute. This semiannual series will bring some of today’s most imaginative intellectual leaders and creators to deliver public talks on the future of humanity. Through the lens of their singular achievements and experiences, these trailblazers in creativity, innovation, philosophy and politics will lecture on provocative topics that explore current challenges and transformations in human progress.
UCLA faculty and students have long been at the forefront of interpreting the world’s legacy of language, literature, art and science. UCLA Humanities serves a vital role in readying future leaders to articulate their thoughts with clarity and imagination, to interpret the world of ideas, and to live as informed citizens in an increasingly complex world. We are proud to be partnering in this lecture series with the Berggruen Institute, whose work addresses the “Great Transformations” taking place in technology and culture, politics and economics, global power arrangements, and even how we perceive ourselves as humans. The Institute seeks to connect deep thought in the human sciences — philosophy and culture — to the pursuit of practical improvements in governance.
A selection committee comprising representatives of UCLA and the Berggruen Institute has been formed to make recommendations for lecturers. The committee includes:
• Ursula Heise, Professor and Chair, Department of English; Professor, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; Marcia H. Howard Term Chair in Literary Studies
• Pamela Hieronymi, Professor of Philosophy
• Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Professor of Urban Planning; Associate Provost for Academic Planning
• Todd Presner, Associate Dean, Digital Initiatives; Chair of the Digital Humanities Program; Michael and Irene Ross Endowed Chair of Yiddish Studies; Professor of Germanic Languages and Comparative Literature
• Lynn Vavreck, Professor, Department of Political Science; Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics and Public Policy
• David Schaberg, Senior Dean of the UCLA College; Dean of Humanities; Professor, Asian Languages & Cultures
• Nils Gilman, Vice President of Programs, the Berggruen Institute