Pratt Sessions: Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Sofia von Ellrichshausen will join GA/LA/UD Chair Andrew Holder to present a canonical project from her practice Pezo von von Ellrichshausen as part of the Department’s series of Pratt Sessions. The Chilean practice, led by Sofia and her partner Mauricio Pezo, has exercised a profound influence on architecture in the United States, turning attention from form to what the duo call “format,” or a stress on a basic grammar of spatial relations between primary objects.

Pratt Sessions are a format for discourse at the Department of Graduate Architecture, Landscape, and Urban Design. The sessions seek to refine and intensify the event-structures commonly found in the design academy. Whereas lectures desire general audiences for broad overviews or introductions, Pratt Sessions focus on just one piece of work by a single author or practice. Whereas juries convene faculty to critically engage student work at the end of a project, Pratt Sessions gathers colleagues to support the intellectual project of a figure we mutually admire.