AIA Monterey Bay

is excited to be bringing the arts and architectural-minded community back together in person after over a year. We are proud to announce the continuation of the Arts and Architecture Lecture Series for 2020-2021. The series focuses on some of the most significant and creative architects who helped shape the Monterey area, Henry Hill, Will Shaw, Olof Dahlstrand, John Thodos, and George Brook-Kothlow. These talks will explore the development of their individual styles and analyze their important buildings with special attention to how the context of this region affected their work.  In addition, we are presenting a Home and Garden Tour, in partnership with Carmel Heritage Society, featuring homes designed by the architects presented in our lecture series and others.

This series can be of interest to architects, designers, builders, real estate professionals, planning and building officials, and people with a general interest in architecture and history. Please scroll down for information and tickets for each lecture, the House Tour, and links to the videos of the two lectures presented in 2020.

Olof Dahlstrand

SPEAKER: PIERLUIGI SERRAINO

This lecture will delve into the career and projects of Olof Dahlstrand, a sought-after architect and renderer, operating in San Francisco first and later in the Monterey Bay Peninsula from the mid-1940s till the early 1990s. A native of Wisconsin, he landed in the Bay Area at a pivotal moment of developmental change in post-war California. His professional associations with Frank and Lois Langhorst, as well as with Skidmore, Owing & Merrill, were critical in his ascent as a critical figure in the conception and execution of canonical works of the golden age of California Modernism.

Together with his architectural achievements, Dahlstrand acquired national distinction for his super rendering skills. His renderings were among the most persuasive tools to have highly regarded commissions built. Among the most noteworthy are the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, designed by John Carl Warnecke & Associates, and the Oakland Museum of California by Roche & Dinkeloo.

In covering the professional trajectory of Olof Dahstrand, biographical anecdotes and key encounters will be intermingled with the analysis of built and unbuilt projects with a particular focus on his contribution to the architectural legacy of the Monterey Bay Peninsula.

SPEAKER
Practicing Architect and Design Agitator, Pierluigi’s projects and writings have been published in journals such as Architectural Record, A+U (Japan), and The Architectural Review (UK). Among his book Modernism Rediscovered (Taschen, 2000), The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Personality Study (Monacelli Press, 2016), and most recently Ezra Stoller: A Photographic History of Modern American Architecture (Phaidon, 2019).