Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio

Founded in 1995 through the generosity of Phyllis Wattis, this lecture series brings innovative thinkers to SFMOMA. This fall’s distinguished lecturers, Diller and Scofidio, lead an interdisciplinary firm that works across architecture, urban design, and the visual and performing arts to explore the extended possibilities of architectural practice. Their projects include media installations like Facsimile (2003) in San Francisco’s Moscone Center and innovative works of architecture like the Blur Building (2002), a pavilion created for the Swiss Expo on Lake Neuchatel using water as its primary material, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, which combines dynamic public and contemplative private space. Current projects for the Lincoln Center and the High Line in New York will craft new social spaces from remnants of the city’s modernist and industrial history. For this presentation, Urbach joins Diller and Scofidio in conversation about their experimental practice and the built environment. A reception in The Schwab Room, co-hosted by the Architecture and Design Department, follows the talk.