VOLUME 12, NUMBER 20 • APRIL 20, 2001

Council Hosts Dialog Between Architecture and Biology

On Wed., April 4, The Rockefeller University Council and the Architectural League of New York co-sponsored a program entitled "Designs for Living: Architecture and Biology in Conversation."

From left to right:John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor Günter Blobel, architect James Stewart Polshek and Rockefeller University President Arnold J. Levine.

Architects and biologists are clearly different professionals, but they share certain concepts, approaches and even key objectives. How can they learn from each other? This question was put to the test through a dialogue between James Stewart Polshek, one of the world’s leading architects, and Nobel Prize-winning biologist Günter Blobel, the university’s John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor and an HHMIinvestigator. Rockefeller University President Arnold J. hosted the program.

Biologists strive to understand the structure and function of living organisms and natural systems, while architects design functional structures and systems. Biology extends human life by contributing to the conquest of disease; architecture improves the quality of life by creating environments suited to a wide range of human activities. A biologist asks: How does it work? An architect asks: What works?