Message from George Baird, Dean:

I am pleased to announce that the Frank Gehry International Visiting Chair in Architectural Design at al&d for the academic year 2007-08 will be held by Jürgen Mayer H. of the firm J. Mayer H. Architects, based in Berlin, Germany.

Professor Mayer will be the first Europe-based architect to hold the chair. He was educated at the University of Stuttgart, Cooper Union, and Princeton University.

He established his practice in Berlin in 1996 and since then has gone on to win numerous awards and competitions. Since 2003, when he won a Special Mention in the prestigious Europe-wide Mies van der Rohe competition for young architects, he has won 4 design competitions: the Mensa Karlsruhe in 2003 (completed in 2006); the Plaza de la Encarnacion in Seville, in 2004 (completed in 2007); and the Hasselt Stationsomgeving in Belgium and the An der Alster office complex in Hamburg, both in 2005.

In addition, he was nominated for the Marcus Prize in 2005, and won the Bronze Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction that same year.

Professor Mayer has taught at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Columbia University, the Architectural Association in London, and the ETH in Zürich.

We will welcome Professor Mayer to al&d at the beginning of January 2008.