AIA UK/RIBA 2023 Keynote Lecture - Thom Mayne

The AIA UK/RIBA Keynote Lecture featuring Thom Mayne of Morphosis was held on the 30th of January, having been rescheduled from last autumn.  The event was held at the RIBA headquarters in London to a full house plus an online audience.  Introductions were given by Dr Valerie Vaughan-Dick MBE, RIBA CEO; Muyiwa Oki, RIBA President, Emily Grandstaff-Rice, AIA 2023 National President (via video), and by Gregory Fonseca, AIA UK 2023 President.

Thom Mayne’s presentation was a spellbinding overview of his practice and thinking, using projects as talking points rather than exploring individual buildings in depth.  The talk was loosely configured around the themes of Early, Middle, and Current.  Early projects include several California projects such as the Crawford Residence (1990) and the Diamond Ranch High School (2001).  There was a heavy similarity to the theoretical work of Archigram, and it was no accident that Sir Peter Cook, one of the Archigram founders, was in the audience as Thom Mayne’s guest.

The Middle range of projects then demonstrated a geographically broad range of significant projects.  These included the Eugene Federal Courthouse (2006), Perot Museum (2012), Casablanca Tower (2019), Shenzhen Tower (2020) and many more.  There was an admirable design consistency between the early smaller projects and the much larger commercial projects.  Thom Mayne asserted that despite the seemingly complex geometries, the project budgets on their buildings were in a standard range.

The final portion of his presentation included several unbuilt competition projects such as Performing Art Centers for Rensselaer University and for Taipei, a Beijing Cultural Park, and Unicorn Island in China.

A lively Q&A session followed the presentation, after which attendees carried on discussions over drinks served in the Jarvis Hall foyer.

Written by Lester Korzilius, FAIA, RIBA