The celebration of the centennial of architectural education at Kansas State University during 2003 and 2004 resumes with the visit of the inaugural Victor L. Regnier Chair in Architecture. Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara will lecture at 2:00 p.m. Thursday, September 9, in Forum Hall of the K-State Student Union. The event is open to the public without charge.

One of Japan’s most prominent and internationally renowned architects, Hiroshi Hara has been responsible for the designs of many of the most significant and largest projects in his country, including major urban complexes such as the Iida City Museum, the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka, the Miyagi Prefectural Library in Sendai, the Kyoto Station Complex, and the recently completed Sapporo Dome.

Trained at Tokyo University, Hara is one of the most accomplished in a new generation of avant-garde New Wave architects who became active beginning in the late 1960s and who were sharply critical of the contemporary urban developments in Japan. Yet, unlike many of his more radical contemporaries, Hara derived his design theories from his extensive studies of vernacular architecture and indigenous settlements in Asia and Africa, in an attempt to bring cultural relevance to avant-garde ideas. He follows a unique anthropological approach to architecture somewhat similar in nature to the one put forward by the members of Team Ten in Europe.

Hara’s early works, the so-called “reflection houses,” such as his own residence at Machida near Tokyo and the Niramu House, Tokyo, display a negative attitude toward the chaotic and volatile conditions of the Japanese city and focus instead upon the internal order of the house as informed by critical aspects of dwelling. They were all shaped along sequences of centrally and symmetrically arranged spaces and appeared as hollowed-out concavities. Many of them implemented scaled-down and metaphorical urban elements, including landmarks, intersections and plazas, and so could be regarded as attempts to create miniature and fantastic cities.

Hara will also lecture in Kansas City during his visit. That presentation will be Wednesday, September 8, 2004, at 7:00 p.m. in the lecture auditorium of the Regnier Building on the Edwards Campus of the University of Kansas, 12600 Quivira, Overland Park, Kansas.

The Victor L. Regnier Chair in Architecture was established in 2003 through the extraordinary generosity of his children, Victor A. Regnier, Robert D. Regnier, and Catherine M. Regnier, through the Victor and Helen Regnier Family Foundation of Mission, Kansas. The purpose of the Victor L. Regnier Chair is to recruit and retain the highest quality faculty, as well as to enrich the educational experience of students by engaging architects with national and international reputations to teach annually in the Department of Architecture. Victor A. Regnier is a 1971 K-State graduate with degrees in architecture and architectural engineering and has served the Department of Architecture and the College of Architecture, Planning, and Design in many and varied ways.

Hara will spend several periods in residence at K-State during the 2004-2005 academic year, teaching in the fifth-year architecture studio of Professor Robert Arens. Studio projects will include the design of a roughly 60,000 square foot building comprised of an art center, commercial offices, and residential uses, as well as a subsequent reworking of that design to one multiplied by 10 times the original size and organized vertically rather than horizontally.

This event is funded by the Victor L. Regnier Chair in Architecture, the Kansas Arts Commission, and the K-State Student Fine Arts Fee.

Attendance at the K-State lecture can be submitted as continuing education credit by design professionals by contacting Diane Potts.

For more information, contact:

James S. Jones, 785.532.5953
Diane Potts, 785.532.1090