John Portman Lecture: Bruther // Stéphanie Bru et Alexandre Thériot

A building with large glass windows, with blue and red panels across some of them.

Residence for researchers, Cité Universitaire Internationale, Paris 14e, France, © Filip Dujardin

Event Information
Starting Monday, April 4, members of the general public will once again be invited to attend GSD public programs in person. All attendees must be fully vaccinated, including a booster shot, and must present proof of vaccination at the security desk in the lobby of Gund Hall before entering an event. To expedite your check-in process, please email your proof of vaccination to [email protected].

All are also invited to watch and participate online in this program by tuning into this page at the noted start time. No pre-registration is required.  Online audience members will be able to submit questions throughout the event using Vimeo’s Q&A function. If you would like to submit questions for the speaker in advance of the event, please click here.

Live captioning will be provided during this event live stream and CART captioning will be available for our in-person audience. Learn more about accessibility services at public programs.

Speakers

Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot stand next to each other in front of a mirrored wall.
© Marvin Leuvrey

Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot founded Bruther in Paris in 2007. They belong to the generation of architects who started their careers at the beginning of the recession, a condition likely to be reflected in the way they define architecture: as a Swiss Army knife, a tool to be used in the most disparate circumstances, an aid that reconciles all fields of knowledge.

Their design courage is evident in urban projects, especially those on the margins, often for a public institution with a small budget. Elastic social infrastructures can be seen in the cultural and sports centre (2014) in Saint-Blaise, Paris, and the Nouvelle Génération research centre (2015) in Caen, Normandy. Both act as catalysts for collective urban activity; both are reminiscent of the Brazilian SESC (Social Service of Commerce) buildings.

BRUTHER’s work is the subject of international conferences and several publications. In 2019, the monograph El Croquis on their journey is published.

Distinguished by several awards, they have received the Équerre d’Argent prize three times, the Dejean prize in 2018 from the Academy of Architecture, and more recently the Swiss Award. Stéphanie Bru became a full member of the Academy of Architecture in 2021.

Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot were visiting professors at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in 2018. Currently, Alexandre Theriot is an associate professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Stéphanie Bru is an associate professor at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. For Spring 2022, Bru and Theriot are the John C. Portman Design Critics at the GSD.

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the Public Programs Office at (617) 496-2414 or [email protected].

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