FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Nicole Minadeo
(312) 768-4744
[Link]@[Link]
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Academy of Neuroscience Announce
International Symposium on Neuroscience and Architecture
Taliesin West hosts world-renowned architects and scientists
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Frank Lloyd Wright School of
Architecture and the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, have announced they will host
an international symposium dedicated to exploring the relationship between neuroscience and
architecture. The symposium titled: Minding Design: Neuroscience, Design Education and the
Imagination, will be held on November 9-10, 2012, at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz., the
desert campus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
“We are honored to have the opportunity to host international dialogue between neuroscientists,
architects and educators at Taliesin West,” said Sarah Robinson, Symposium Chair and
Founding Chair of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture Board of Governors. “We
spend about ninety percent of our lives inside buildings designed by architects. Yet the majority
of the education of an architect is devoted to acquiring technical knowledge with very little
emphasis on how design shapes--and is shaped by--human experience.”
Minding Design will bring together some of the world’s most distinguished architects and
scientists to explore the implications of advances on the education of those who design our built
world. Architects and brain scientists have much to learn from each other and discussion will
address the implications of neuroplasticity on lifelong learning, how the environment changes
the structure of the brain, how the imagination functions, and how to best nurture it and what is
important for the designer to know and how best to teach it.
“The relatively young discipline of neuroscience is making enormous strides in understanding
how environmental factors impact how we think, perceive, remember, learn and heal,” added
Alison Whitelaw, President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture. “The Academy is
excited to partner with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and School of Architecture on this
ground-breaking venture.”
They symposium and workshops will feature key note speakers, including:
• Juhani Pallasmaa: Finland’s preeminent architect, former director of both the Finnish
Museum of Architecture and the department of architecture at Helsinki University of
Technology. He is also the author or editor of over 30 books, a member of the jury for the
Pritzker Prize since 2009 and will be Scholar-in-Residence at Taliesin West this fall.
• Steven Holl: Recipient of the 2012 AIA Gold Medal and has realized cultural, civic,
academic, and residential projects throughout the world. His most recent works are the
Linked Hybrid mixed-use complex in Beijing, China (2009), named Best Tall Building
Overall for 2009 by the Council on Tall Buildings and the Horizontal Skyscraper in
Shenzhen, China (2009). A professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of
Architecture and Planning, he is the author of numerous books most recently, Horizontal
Skyscraper.
• Iain McGilchrist: Former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal
College of Psychiatrists, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the
Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He is the author of numerous articles,
papers and books on diverse subjects and studied philosophy, trained in medicine, and
became a psychiatrist.
• Michael Arbib: The Director of the USC Brain Project, the Fletcher Jones Professor of
Computer Science and a Professor of Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering,
Electrical Engineering, Neuroscience and Psychology at USC. He is the author or editor
of over 40 books and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Academy of
Neuroscience for Architecture.
“This symposium is exciting and forward thinking and exactly the kind of program we exist to
make possible,” said Sean Malone, CEO of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. “Taliesin West
is the perfect setting for an exploration of how the space in which we surround ourselves
fundamentally affects how we think and who we are.”
The Minding Design symposium coincides with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s 75th
anniversary of Taliesin West, the 80th Reunion of the Taliesin Fellows and will inaugurate the
school’s alumni-funded scholar and artist-in-residence program, whose first scholar will be the
distinguished Finnish architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa.
For more information visit on the event visit [Link] or to register email
75thevents@[Link]
About the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation is a non-profit organization that was established by Frank
Lloyd Wright in 1940 to be a cultural and educational institution and the primary conservator of
his work. The Foundation owns two world-famous National Historic Landmarks – Taliesin in
Spring Green, Wis. and Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Ariz. – both open to inspire the public. The
Foundation also owns and manages the vast Frank Lloyd Wright Archives and operates the
Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, a continuation of the apprenticeship program Wright
established in 1932. [Link]
Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture
The mission of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture is to promote and advance
knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to
the built environment. The Academy benefits from the expanding body of research that has
evolved within the neuroscience community in the last two decades, and the promise of even
more in the coming century. Some observers have characterized what is happening in
neuroscience as the most exciting frontier of human knowledge since the Renaissance. All
humanity stands to benefit from this research in countless ways still to be determined. The
profession of architecture has become a partner in developing the application of this knowledge
base in order to increase its ability to be of service to society. [Link]
###
