“Tallinn Architecture Biennial” (photo: Tonu Tunnel))
Lola Ben-Alon: Coral Courts Lecture
Lola Ben-Alon will deliver the Coral Courts Lecture as part of the Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series at WashU.
About Lola Ben-Alon
Lola Ben-Alon is a material designer, engineer, and curator. She is an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, where she directs the natural materials lab and the building technology curriculum. She specializes in earthen building materials, their life cycles, supply chains, fabrication techniques, and policy. Ben-Alon earned her doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University and holds a Bachelor of Science in Structural Engineering and Master of Science in Construction Management from the Technion Institute of Technology. Her design work has been exhibited globally including at the Venice Biennial, Indian Ceramics Triennial, Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Craft Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles, the Center for Mediterranean Architecture in Greece, 1014 Space for Ideas in New York, and Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Her scholarly work has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals such as Construction and Building Materials, Building and Environment, the Journal of Green Building, and Automation in Construction, as well as featured in design magazines such as Metropolis, The Architect’s Newspaper, and Dezeen. In 2024, Ben-Alon received the Architectural League of New York Prize. She is a recipient of multiple grants, including the National Science Foundation’s Future Manufacturing grant and the U.S. Innovation Corps grant. Ben-Alon serves on the board of ACSA’s Technology | Architecture + Design, and Elsevier’s Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
More Upcoming Lectures
Apr 15 at 5:30pm • Museum Lobby
Being and Becoming in Contemporary Chinese Art
This talk by Peggy Wang, associate professor of art history and Asian studies at Bowdoin College, addresses the conflicting pressures that artists in China confronted during the 1990s and early 2000s, including rapid urbanization and cultural globalization. Even as they navigated political constraints and deficits in resources, contemporary artists enacted productive strategies for making and exhibiting their art. This lecture foregrounds artists’ assertions of being and becoming, both as critical tactics for configuring identity and generative topics unto themselves. Wang will particularly examine how artists studied the vibrant dynamics of change through temporal, historical, and material dimensions in their art.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China, on view at the Kemper Art Museum from February 27 to July 27, 2026.
Part of the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series