The Farajollah and Maryam Badie Arfaa Lecture Series
Drexel University's endowed Farajollah and Maryam Badie Arfaa Lecture Series, which is hosted by the Westphal College Department of Architecture, Design & Urbanism, brings design professionals and scholars of the built environment to campus several times per year. Public presentations consider contemporary, historic, professional, and theoretical aspects of architecture, interior design, and urbanism, introducing the Drexel community and greater Philadelphia audience to issues of local, national, and global relevance.
Peter F. Arfaa, FAIA, (1935–2020) had a long and distinguished career as an architect and educator. In over forty years of practice, he designed and managed a broad range of projects including institutional, medical, commercial, residential, and recreational facilities. Having studied history and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Arfaa joined the architecture faculty at Drexel University in 1972. There he taught for thirty-nine years, serving as Department Head from 1976 to 1985. In 1996, he received Drexel’s Laura Campbell Award for distinguished teaching, having previously received the Mozino Blue and Gold Award in 1995. In 1992 he established Drexel’s first endowed lecture series, which he named in honor of his parents, Farajollah and Maryam Badie Arfaa.
The Department of Architecture, Design & Urbanism’s Farajollah and Maryam Badie Arfaa Lecture Series debuted in 1994, with Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi as its inaugural speakers. In its first three decades (1994–2024), Drexel has hosted nearly ninety presentations featuring speakers from around the globe as a part of the Arfaa Lecture Series.
Celebrating 30+ Years of Arfaa Lecture Speaker Series
2024–2025
- Henry Grabar, "The Perfect Spot: How the Pursuit of Parking Shapes Our World"
- Jae Yong Suk, "On The Bright Side: Light for Health and the Environment"
- Vishaan Chakrabarti, "The Architecture of Urbanity: Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy"
2023–2024
- D. K. Osseo-Asare, “Stellating Design”
- Michael J. Schreffler, “Cuzco in the Sixteenth Century: Foundation, Translation and the Fall of the Inca Empire”
- Mark L. Brack, “Where Do You Live?” (Recording available here)
2022–2023
- Juan Lucas Young (Sauerbruch Hutton), “Sustainability and Grace: The Architecture of Sauerbruch Hutton”
- Eric Höweler (Höweler + Yoon), “Under the Weather”
- Eric Oskey (Moto Designshop), “Tectonic Tensions”
2021–2022
- Sarah Johnston and Mark Lee (Johnston Marklee), “Extremes and In-Betweens”
- Wanda Dalla Costa, “Indigenous Design: New Meaning, Methodologies and Responsibilities”
- Lesley-Ann Noel, “An Introduction to Equity -Centered Approaches in Design”
2020–2021
- Susan Jones, “Emerging Design Territories: Production, Performance and the Hypernatural in Mass Timber"
- Fernanda Canales, “Shared Space”
- Ann Sussman, “Architecture + the 21st- Century Paradigm Shift: Designing for the Emotional Brain”
2019–2020
- Nigel Dancey (Norman Foster & Associates), “People Designing for People”
- Paul Levy, “Designing and Making Public Space: What’s Public? What’s Private?”
2018–2019
- Michael Murphy (MASS Design Group), “Buildings Can Heal”
- Julie Snow, “The Work of Snow Kreilich”
- Lim Hyeung-Nam and Roh Eun-Joo (Studio Gaon), “Completed by Time, An Architecture with Moving Spaces”
2017–2018
- Susan Szenasy (Metropolis), “Searching for Authenticity in Digital Times”
- Shashi Caan, “Design Interventions”
- Robert Harbison, “Detail and Perception”
2016–2017
- Harris Steinberg, Ryan Lovett, and Gerard Sweeney, “Town and Gown: Creating Schuylkill Yards”
- Judith Gura, “The Challenge of Landmark Interiors”
- Elaine Molinar and Craig Dykers (Snøhetta), “Habitat: Large & Small”
2015–2016
- Peter Gluck, “Breaking Out of Our Silo”
- Laura Padgett, “Remnants: Photographic Thoughts on Modernism”
- Roger Duffy (SOM), “Architecture in the Age of Collaboration”
2014–2015
- Laurie Olin, “Disegno = Design: On Drawing in Architecture and Landscape Architecture”
- Witold Rybczynski, “
Starchitects Locatects”
- Peter Bohlin, “The Nature of Circumstance”
2013–2014
- Randall Stout, “Convergent Systems and the Decline of Autonomous Design”
- Marguerite Rodgers and James Timberlake, “In Conversation”
- Nina Rappaport, “Deep Decoration/New Structural Design”
2012–2013
- Katherine Rinne, ““Rome: A City and Its Water Supply”
- Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, “The Philadelphia Story”
- Robin Klehr Avia (Gensler), “The New Currency of Space: What’s Influencing the Design of Environments Today”
2011–2012
- Bill Black, “The Relationship Between the Value of Design and Integrated Thinking”
- Robert A. M. Stern, “Architecture and Plance”
- Judith Bing, “Travels to the East”
2010–2011
- Herman Hertzberger, “Social Space”
- Karen Franck, “Let the Client Speak: Design Through Dialogue”
- Paul Hirshorn, “What I Believe”
2009–2010
- Philip Freelon, “New Museum Projects: Integrating Architecture and Theme”
- Karsten Harries, ‘Architecture and Anarchitecture: The Anatomy of Building”
2008–2009
- Gray Brechin, “Another World was Possible: The Indispensable New Deal”
- Juha Leiviska, “Belonging Together”
2007–2008
- A. J. Diamond, “Context and Content”
- Michael Lewis, “Furness: Second Thoughts”
- Cameron Sinclair (Architecture for Humanity), ‘We Don’t Ship: How Community Design Delivers More Than Architecture”
2006–2007
- Reed Kroloff, “Rebuilding New Orleans”
- Sam Bass Warner, “Refreshing the Tree of Architecture”
- Juliet Schor, “Mainstreaming Green Construction”
2005–2006
- Julius Shulman, “Communicating Architecture”
- Judith Sheine, “R. M. Schindler”
- Grant Hildebrand, “Spaces for Emotional Well-being”
2004–2005
- Franklin Toker, “Frank Lloyd Wright Thinks Fallingwater”
- Henry Cobb, “Fifty Years On”
- Robert Ennis, “Thomas U. Walter & Me”
2003–2004
- James Cutler, “Making Things Fit”
- Ralph Johnson (Perkins & Will), “Current Work”
- Rob Wellington Quigley, “In Search of the Present: A Case for Enlightened Provincialism”
2002–2003
- Peter Papademetriou, “Coming of Age: Eero Saarinen and American Modern Architecture”
- Barbara Miller Lane, “Architecture and Politics in the 20th Century”
- Alfred Berger (Berger + Parkkinen), “The Work of Berger + Parkkinen”
2001–2002
- Dana Cuff, “Modern Housing in the Provisional City”
- Carol Willis, “Skyscrapers: Past, Present, Future”
- Merrill Elam, “Work”
2000–2001
- Michael Sorkin, “The City After Now”
- Giorgio Gianighian
- Henry Glassie
1999–2000
- Thomas Schumacher, “Giuseppe Terragni: Historicism to Rhetoricism”
- Lucien Kroll, “Animal Planning and Homeopathic Architecture”
- John Patkau, “Recent Work”
1998–1999
- Pliny Fisk, “The Conceptual Space Race”
- Frances Halsband, “Work”
- Michael McKinnnell, “Tradition and Invention in Architecture”
1997–1998
- Robert Mark
- Samuel Mockbee, “Sketch of the Architect”
- Bart Prince, “Works and Projects”
1996–1997
- Turner Brooks
- Leon Krier
- James Stewart Polshek
1995–1996
- Marris Lapidus
- Michael Graves
- Michael Dennis
1994–1995
- Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi
- Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk
- Harvey Gantt