Architect Andrés Jaque, 51, founder and dean of the Office of Political Innovation, based in New York and Madrid, will be the new dean for the University’s Department of Architecture, Planning and Conservation. Columbia University. The university’s president, Lee Bollinger, announced the appointment on Thursday.
Jaque has taught at the graduate school since 2013 and leads the Master of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design. He succeeds Amale Andraos, who was appointed as Bollinger’s advisor on the recently established Columbia Climate School.
Jaque’s company, founded in 2003, has developed works with an expansive and florid form and color that address social inclusion and environmental responsibility, such as in an initial project to convert a Catholic seminary into a home for elderly priests, and an almost complete school in Madrid.
In a house in Ibiza, he staged glass pavilions with painted decorations to preserve local plants and paths used by animals. He said in an interview: “Architecture now needs to be about inclusion and confusion rather than exclusion and purity.
He has acted as curator and designed a number of rich installations for museums, including MoMA Young Architect Program 2015. His work has been widely published and exhibited. A research and installation project in Barcelona addressed the plight of students, migrants and workers moving from one country to another in search of work, education or a stable home. .
He will lead programs in architecture, urban design and urban planning, as well as historic preservation and property development. Architectural education is at a crossroads, he said, and the field is only belatedly starting to deal with “inclusion, inequality and the underlying climate crisis”.
He plans to promote initiatives at the architecture school to increase the number of students and faculty from underrepresented groups.
Though he has high aspirations, Jaque said he hopes to become a dean who “helps develop agendas that are important to faculty and students, rather than imposing a program of their own.” me,” he said. He began his term on September 1.
