News from SUNY Cortland

For more information contact: Jennifer Wilson, 607-753-2232

New York Times Writer Nicolai Ouroussoff To Discuss Environment-Friendly Building on April 17

Lecture Part Of College's 'Earthly Matters' Series

CORTLAND, NY (04/07/2008; 1323)(readMedia)-- Nicolai Ouroussoff, the chief architecture critic for The New York Times, will discuss green architecture on Thursday, April 17, at SUNY Cortland.

Ouroussoff, who has written a number of articles pertaining to the green architectural movement for The New York Times magazine, will begin at 4:30 p.m. in Sperry Center, Room 105.

The lecture, which continues the College’s year-long “Earthly Matters” lecture series organized by the Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee, is free and open to the public.

Ouroussoff wrote an article titled “Why Are They Greener Than We Are,” which was published on May 20, 2007, in The New York Times magazine. The piece explains why Europe has been building “green” for decades while the designers in the U.S. are still taking baby steps.

Much of the construction on the European continent was completed under ever tightening European Union environmental guidelines for buildings, he asserted.

By comparison, in the U.S., “despite the media attention showered on ‘green’ issues, the federal government has yet to establish universal efficiency standards for buildings,” Ouroussoff wrote.

His article shows examples of Europe’s early “green” construction undertaken during the 1970s, a self-conscious and basic approach featuring solar panels and recycled materials that was dubbed “Birkenstock architecture.” More recent projects include the headquarters for Germany’s environment agency in Dessau. Described by Ouroussoff as the embodiment of “a new, ecologically sensitive Europe,” the structure is cooled and heated by a system of underground pipes and ceiling vents that automatically release excess heat and circulate breezes from outside.

“Americans did not always lag so far behind,” Ouroussoff wrote. “Much of our most celebrated architecture has had a green strain. Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra all sought to create a more fluid relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces.”

Named the architecture critic of The New York Times in 2004, Ouroussoff was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2006. From 1996 to 2004, he was the architecture critic of The Los Angeles Times and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2003 and 2004.

A freelance writer from 1992 to 1996, Ouroussoff’s work appeared in Artforum, The New York Observer, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Elle Décor and The New York Times.

Born in Boston in 1962, he received a bachelor’s degree in Russian from Georgetown University and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture.

“Earthly Matters” is the third yearlong series of lectures and cultural events organized around a single theme at SUNY Cortland. Sponsored by the College’s Cultural and Intellectual Climate Committee and NeoVox, the series is funded by the Offices of the President and the Provost.

For more information, contact Richard Kendrick, professor and chair of the Sociology and Anthropology Department and director of the College’s Institute for Civic Engagement, at (607) 753-2481.

-30-