Susan Stamberg on "Leadership, Community, and the Built Environment"—Thursday, May 17

As one of the pioneers of National Public Radio (NPR), Stamberg will draw on 30 years of experience as a broadcast journalist to describe how politics and leadership play intricate roles in creating community. Special correspondent for NPR, Stamberg has won every major broadcasting award.

Stamberg served as the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program, “All Things Considered®,” which she cohosted for 14 years. She currently guest-hosts NPR’s “Morning Edition®,” “Weekend Edition® Saturday,” and “Weekly Edition®” newsmagazines, and reports on cultural issues for all of the network’s programs.

Known for her conversational style and skill at finding new and different angles on every topic, Stamberg has conducted thousands of interviews, tapping diverse minds—Annie Liebowitz, Rosa Parks, Nancy Reagan, Dave Brubeck, and James Baldwin, among others. A native of New York City, Stamberg has written two books and has coedited a third. She is a fellow of Silliman College at Yale University and serves on the boards of the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award Foundation and Northwestern University’s Medill School National Arts Journalism program. She was the public member of the AIA Board of Directors in 1984.

Daniel Libeskind on "Environment and Place"—Friday, May 18

Libeskind, recently selected to design the $62.5 million, 146,000-square-foot extension to the Denver Art Museum, will discuss his design methodology while focusing on the value of "environment and place." Head of an international architecture, landscape, and urban design practice, he has a portfolio extending from major cultural institutions in England, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Spain, and the U.S. to stage, costume, and exhibition design on three continents.

A U.S. citizen since 1965, Libeskind was born in postwar Poland, studied music in Israel and New York City, and became an accomplished performer before beginning his architectural studies at Cooper Union in New York City and in England. He served as head of the architecture department at Cranbrook Academy of Art from 1978 to 1985, has taught at a number of universities worldwide (currently, he is a professor at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, and holds the University of Pennsylvania's Cret Chair), and has been both the author and subject of many international publications.

Santiago Calatrava on "Design Arts and Implementation"—Friday, May 18

The convention focus will turn to "design arts and implementation" when Calatrava takes his turn as theme speaker. Known for his spectacular, soaring designs featuring curvilinear roofs and sweeping kinetic forms, he will draw on his broad background in sculpture, engineering, and architecture to address this aspect of creating community. For Calatrava, architecture is art. "If you step back in history, you will see that architecture has been considered art," he has said. "If you study the history of art, [you will find] this pure understanding that architecture is an art. This is something that, for me, needs to be strongly emphasized."

Born in Spain, Calatrava studied both art and architecture in Valencia before receiving his doctorate in civil engineering in Zurich. He now lives and works in Switzerland. Most of his architectural projects have been in Spain and Switzerland and have gained worldwide attention. His 80,700-square-foot addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum on Lake Michigan is his first building in the U.S.

Copyright 2001 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.