Pezo von Ellrichshausen

The Department of Architecture welcomes Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen of Pezo von Ellrichshausen for their lecture, "Second Nature." Through a panoramic view of Pezo von Ellrichshausen's body of work, the lecture will introduce a theoretical background that situates art and architecture in total reciprocity with the so-called natural world. The very notion of a "second nature" suggests a degree of artificiality that comes after a human interpretation, intentionality and an intuitive process of wondering about the role of buildings as a naïve form of knowledge.

Pezo von Ellrichshausen is an art and architecture studio founded in 2002 by Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen. They live and work in southern Chile, in a farm at the foot of the Andes Mountains. 

They are Louis Kahn Visiting Professors at Yale University, have been Professor of the Practice at AAP Cornell University and visiting critics at the GSD Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Tokyo University, the IIT in Chicago, the University of Texas in Austin, Porto Academy and at the Universidad Catolica de Chile.

Their work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the MAXXI in Rome and as part of the Permanent Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. They have been invited to the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition (2010, 2016), where they also were the curators for the Chilean Pavilion in 2008. 

Among other venues, they have lectured at the MIT, Princeton University, Columbia University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Architecture League of New York, the Tate Modern, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Alvar Aalto Symposium and the Royal Institute of British Architects. 

Their work has been distinguished with the Mies Crown Hall Americas Emerge Prize by the IIT, the Rice Design Alliance Prize, the Iberoamerican Architecture Biennial Award and the Chilean Architecture Biennial Award. 

The work of the studio has been widely published and edited in monographic issues of El Croquis, AV in Madrid, A+U in Tokyo, 2G in Barcelona and in the essay books Spatial Structure (B Architecture publisher) and Naïve Intention (Actar). 

Mauricio Pezo (b. Renaico, Chile, 1973) completed a Master in Architecture at the Universidad Catolica and a degree in Architecture at the Universidad del Bio-Bio. He has been awarded the Young Architect Prize by the Chilean Architects Association and the Municipal Art Prize by the Concepcion City Hall. 

Sofia von Ellrichshausen (b. Bariloche, Argentina, 1976) holds a degree in Architecture from the Universidad de Buenos Aires where she was distinguished with the FADU- UBA Honours Diploma. She was the president of the jury at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition (2018). 
 

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