During the fall 2020 academic semester, public lectures presented by architecture schools were a strictly virtual affair due to the COVID-19 crisis. That crisis still rages on but with the arrival of vaccines earlier this year, lecture-goers can now enjoy a bit of additional flexibility thanks to hybrid in-person/virtual public programming offered by many schools. In many, but not all, cases, lectures and other events are now being presented in-person while being simultaneously live-streamed to virtual attendees. It’s the best of both worlds: those aching for the intimacy of a captivating in-person talk can safely do so in a venue where health and safety protocols are (presumably) being observed while the online component allows the speakers to reach a much larger audience, with participants Zooming in from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

That being said, not all lecture series follow this hybrid format, as some schools continue to hold online-only programming or have reverted back to newly in-person programming; sometimes it’s a combination of the two. Be sure to confirm the details of how a lecture that might pique your interest is being held before hitting the register button.

Below, is a non-exhaustive roundup of forthcoming or already-under-way fall 2021 lecture series presented by architecture schools across the country.

Specific dates and times as well as detailed registration can be confirmed on the events pages of each respective school/program. In addition to lectures, other events that may have been scratched from many academic event calendars last fall such as in-person exhibitions and symposia have also been announced.

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

On tap at Columbia GSAPP for the fall 2021 semester are lectures by Wanda Dalla Costa (September 27), Mariam Kamara (October 4), Boonserm Premthada (October 11), Maio (October 18), Teresa Caldeira (October 25), Wonne Ickx (November 3), AAU Anastas (November 8), Suzi Hall, Huda Tayob, and Thandi Loewenson (November 10); Brigitte Shim (November 15), and Amale Andraos, dean of Columbia GSAPP (November 22). Like with many other schools, each event held as part of Columbia GSAPP’s fall lecture series will be held both in-person and virtually.

Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas

Kicking off on September 13 with Fayetteville’s own Marlon Blackwell, future featured speakers in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design’s in-person/virtual hybrid fall 2021 lecture series include Kwendeche (September 27), Theodore Hoerr (October 8), Joel Sanders and Seb Choe (October 18), Liz Ogbu (November 1), Jonathan Tate (November 8), and Jane Hutton (November 8).

Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)

A small sampling of forthcoming lectures in the GSD’s Fall 2021 Public Program series include Reginald Dwayne Betts, Felon: A play; A discourse (October 5); Jade Kake, Indigenous Urbanism (October 19), Andrea Roberts, The Community Core: Making and Keeping Place Heritage in Texas’s Freedom Colonies (October 25), and Eric Klinenberg, Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life (November 3). Held at the Gund Hall Virtual Event Space, all GSD lectures are free and open to the public with advance registration. Events will also be live-streamed via the GSD YouTube page.

Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University

Lecturers appearing this semester as part of Knowlton’s Baumer Series include Sharon Zukin (September 29), José Alvarez (October 6), J.T. Roane (October 20), Florian Idenburg (October 27), Maki Kawaguchi (November 3), Michael Murphy (November 8), and Luis Callejas and Charlotte Hansson (November 10.) All in-person lectures will also be streamed live via YouTube.

Rice University School of Architecture

The scheduled lectures that comprise the fall edition of Rice Architecture’s lecture series, Building Identities, include Building Identities Through My Practice—The Personality of Architecture presented by Michael Willis (September 29), Monument Lab: Power and Participation in Public Art presented by Paul Farber and Ken Lum (October 27), Rethinking Concrete Construction presented by Philippe Block (November 5), and more. All Rice Architecture lectures are held on Zoom Webinar and are free and open to the public.

The Sam Fox School of Architecture and Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis

Sam Fox School’s busy Fall 2021 Public Lecture Series kicked off on September 11 with a conversation with Los Angeles-based artist Hugo Crosthwaite and continues through early December with 16 additional virtual and in-person events. Events include a panel discussion focused on the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia featuring Eric Höweler and J. Meejin Yoon, Mabel O. Wilson, Frank Dukes, Gregg Bleam, and Eto Otitigbe (virtual, September 27); a lecture delivered by architect and historian Kenneth Frampton entitled Mendes da Rocha and the Space of Appearance (October 21, in-person); and an Informal Cities Workshop kickoff lecture from Chelina Odbert, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Kounkuey Design Initiative (November 12, in-person). All events, held both online and in-person, are free and open to the public.

The Southern California Institute of Architecture

Appearing on the fall 2021 lecture roster at SCI-Arc: Ellen van Loon of OMA (September 29), Marion Weiss, co-founder of WEISS/MANFREDI (October 6), Florian Idenburg, co-founder of SO–IL (October 13); artist Alison Saar (October 20), filmmaker and artist Andrew Thomas Huang (November 3), designer, writer, educator, and activist Victor Jones (November 10); designer and scholar Darell Wayne Fields (November 17), and Paris-based Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane. All lectures will be held in-person at SCI-Arc and viewable online via livestream.

The Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York 

Titled Architecture of Care, the Zoom-based fall 2021 SCIAME Lecture series was organized by Spitzer faculty Cesare Birignani and Vyjayanthi Rao and explores “the notion of care and the ways in which architecture might contribute to repairing built environments and social fabrics.” Forthcoming speakers include Neera Adarkar (October 18), Elke Krasny (October 21), Mariana Mogilevic (October 28), Huda Tayob (November 4), and Silvia Federici (November 18).

University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Held entirely online, USC Architecture’s soon-to-kick-off fall lecture series is set to feature talks from Claire Weisz (September 29), Craig Robins (October 6), Paola Antonelli (October 13), Bruce Kuwabara (October 20), David Godshall and Jenny Jones (November 10), Sara Jensen Carr (November 17), and Liz Ogbu (December 1).

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture

Following a hybrid format of in-person conversations that will be live-streamed as well as virtual-only talks, the UT Austin School of Architecture’s fall 2021 lecture series began on September 15. Forthcoming speakers include Coren Sharples, founding partner of SHoP Architects (September 27); New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman (October 4), Dutch architect Anne Holtrop (October 11), and Louis Shultz, founding member of London-based art, architecture, and design collective Assemble (October 20). All lectures are free and open to the public.

University of Virginia School of Architecture

Featured speakers participating in the University of Virginia School of Architecture’s in-person fall lecture series include, among others, Mexico City-based architect Manuel Cervantes (October 5); Sekou Cooke, founder of sekou cooke STUDIO and director of the Master of Urban Design program at UNC Charlotte (October 25); and Stella Betts and David Leven, cofounders of New York City-based architectural practice LEVENBETTS (November 15). On November 8, Shannon Nichol, founding principal of Seattle-based landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol, will deliver a lecture via Zoom.

The Yale School of Architecture

Kicking off earlier this week with a lecture from Justin Beal, author of the newly released Sandfuture (MIT Press), the Yale School of Architecture’s fall 2021 lecture programming continues with talks from Ife Vanable (October 7), Caroline Bos (October 26), Jessica Varner (October 28), Heather Roberge (November 1), Todd Sander (November 4), Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski (November 8), Elaine Scarry (November 11), and Abeer Seikaly (November 18). Lectures, unless otherwise noted, are held in-person at Hastings Hall and via Zoom.