ABSTRACTION IN A LANDSCAPE OF UNHOLY UNIONS Most architecture isn’t very good, most good architecture is good enough for most days, but some architecture, some buildings, need to rise above the everyday. This necessarily challenges us to return to the significance of the everyday, to enrich and revalidate it through the totality of the things we build.

MARLON BLACKWELL, FAIA is a practicing architect in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and serves as Distinguished Professor and E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas. Work produced in his professional office, Marlon Blackwell Architects, has received national and international recognition with significant publication in books, architectural journals and magazines, and numerous design awards, including the 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture. Blackwell was named a United States Artists Ford Fellow in 2014 and received the 2012 Architecture Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

RESOURCES A selection of readings related to the lecture, see links below. Please note that you must be logged in to Google with your CMU Andrew ID to access the materials.

• Architecture in a Landscape of Unholy Unions, Op Arch

• An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell, Princeton Architectural Press

• The Present Situation, New Prairie Press