Harriet Harriss, architect and dean of Pratt School of Architecture, will be the first guest speaker at the Architecture Alive talks for 2020. She will be delivering the talk ‘Architecture’s Afterlife’.

Although architecture is taught as a professional degree, the majority of architecture graduates choose not to register as architects. This talk will seek to investigate why this happens.

Beginning with an analysis of the problems within architectural education, the talk will consider where do these students end up; the kind of work they do and how the way they work allows them to focus on different kinds of issues.

It will examine the profiles and case studies of progressive and even avant-garde practitioners who are working on the frontiers and fringes of mainstream practice and are often using architecture to tackle pressing social and/or environmental issues.

The talk seeks to reassure, encourage and inspire graduating students of architecture of the many career options available to them beyond the traditional architecture practice, to facilitate the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship that is demanded of the job market today, and, to convince graduating students, employers and a diverse range of sectors of the true industrial, cultural and civic value of an architecture degree.

Architecture Alive is a series of design talks hosted by Studjurban and the Planning Authority, and supported by Kamra tal-Periti, Marsovin and Elia Catering.

The event will take place today  at the National Library in Valletta at 7pm. Doors open at 6.30pm. The talk will be followed by drinks and canapés. For more information about this series of lectures, visit www.architecture-alive.com or the event’s Facebook page.