American Business Group Milan

Speaker for April 2010 Lunch

Paolo Conrad Bercah

conrad-bercah is the principal of C-B A—CONRAD-BERCAH ARCHITECTS—a Milan-based architectural workroom. The office's extensively published work ranges from hotel facilities to residential, institutional, and commercial projects. It is known for perceiving architecture as a complex element of cultural production and as a serious vehicle for an active critique, through architectural means, of the culture in which it is placed. The approach is discussed in detail in conrad-bercah's West Workroom, Towards a New Sobriety in Architecture (Charta, 2008), a critical, formal, and cultural self-analysis of the work the office has produced since its foundation. The book was listed as one of the best of 2008 in Il Giornale dell'Architettura and Il Giornale dell'Arte and defined a watershed in architectural theoretical production.

conrad-bercah's new book, to be released in 2010, is titled Architecturah, Venice Urban Tales, and stands as a personal definition of architecture by using Venice as a witness. He writes column of architectural criticism in the weekly magazine of Il Sole 24, in Abitare, in HDM (Harvard Design Magazine) and in Compasses. He runs architectural workshops at the Domus Academy Master in Architectural Design in Milan and also the Milan Chapter of the Harvard Club of Italy organizing meetings with relevant personalities from the world of business, art and culture.

conrad-bercah holds a degree in Architecture from the Politecnico di Torino and from the Harvard Design School where he currently serves as a design critic. He received the John D. Sawyer fellowship from the Longfellow Institute at the Harvard Department of English and American Literature in 1996 and the Arthur Wheelwright fellowship from the GSD in 1999. In 2002, he was awarded the first prize in the Rabin International Peace Forum Competition in Tel Aviv.

conrad-bercah's contact details:

• Website: www.c-ba.it; www.hc-i.org
• Email: c-b c-ba.it (add missing character!)
• Tel.: +39 02 8969 1163
• Cell: +39 334 988 4601

Register now for the next luncheon.