Throughout the last 25 years, Danish architecture studio Dorte Mandrup has specialised forming architecture in places that require a high degree of consideration and care. From spectacular and fragile landscapes to sites that grabble with troubled and uncomfortable historical events. With a highly contextual, artistic and analytical approach, the studio manages to form unique architectural concepts that underlines the place, highlighting its inherent qualities and creating new relevance. In this lecture, founder and creative director Dorte Mandrup will discuss the importance of context in the studio’s work and how they use the entire situation – both its tangible and intangible elements – as a conceptual starting point for each design.

The lecture will be followed by a Q&A.

Danish architect Dorte Mandrup founded her eponymous studio in 1999, eight years after graduating from Aarhus School of Architecture. Studies in both sculpture and natural sciences have influenced her approach, which is hands-on, materialising in deep contextual analysis and explorative prototyping. Her Copenhagen-based studio employs an artistic, humanistic, and scientific approach to create playful, original, and poetic designs that are enhancing the awareness and experience of each place. In recent years, the studio has distinguished itself in the architectural field with extraordinary projects like The Whale in Norway, the Exile Museum at Anhalter Bahnhof in Berlin, Nunavut Inuit Heritage Centre in Canada, and Ilulissat Icefjord Centre on the edge of the UNESCO-protected Kangia Icefjord in Greenland.  

Besides leading an international design studio, Dorte Mandrup is well known for her commitment to the development of the architecture practice and for being an outspoken proponent of diversity, inclusion and integrity within the profession. She headlined the curated international exhibition at La Biennale de Venezia in 2018, chaired the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2019, is Vice Chairman of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, member of Akademi der Künste in Berlin, Honorary Professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Architecture, Design and Conservation and Adjunct Professor at Accademia de Architettura de Mendrisio in Switzerland.

This event is free and open to the public.

Tuesday, September 17 6:30 PM | Rose Auditorium.

Located in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, at 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets).

This event will be conducted in-person in the Rose Auditorium and through Zoom. 

For in-person attendance, please register in advance here.
For Zoom attendance, please register here.

Top image: Dorte Mandrup, Kangiata Illorsua Ilulissat Icefjord Center, 2021. Image © Adam Mørk.

> via The Cooper Union 

architecture event