LANGUAGES OF WOOD

Building on a legacy

Alumni attend weekend reunion for architecture school’s 70th anniversary

FAYETTEVILLE -- Alumni of the University of Arkansas' Fay Jones School of Architecture migrated back to their alma mater Aug. 26-28 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the school's architecture and design programs. A highlight of the busy, pre-football season weekend was a performance of a site-specific classical music piece composed by Paul Haas, music director of the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas.

The work, "In saecula saeculorum" ("For Ever and Ever" or "In Eternity"), utilized nearly a dozen SoNA musicians and was performed in and outside of the renovated Vol Walker Hall.

The weekend started Aug. 26 with tours of the hall, speeches by nationally known architects and architecture professors in the Faulkner Performing Arts Center and a cocktail reception following at the center. A symposium titled "Languages of Wood" with speakers and panelists from all over the country took up most of Aug. 27, followed by the performance of Haas' piece, created specifically for the alumni reunion weekend.

That night, alumni, symposium speakers and others gathered for another cocktail reception, this time at the Chancellor Hotel, followed by a dinner of beef tenderloin and salmon. The weekend closed Aug. 28 with a barbecue picnic lunch for alumni and their families catered by Penguin Ed's Bar-B-Que on the lawn of Vol Walker Hall.

The symposium "Languages of Wood" focused on the use of wood in contemporary architecture and engineering design. Lectures and panel discussions were intended to educate, demonstrate and inspire students, professionals, timber and wood industrialists, state and federal agencies, and the larger public in attendance. Deltic Timber was the sponsor.

Symposium chairmen were Fay Jones School of Architecture Dean and professor Peter MacKeith and architect Marlon Blackwell, who holds the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture.

High Profile on 09/04/2016

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