Design Dialogues: Diller + Kroloff

About the Speakers

Elizabeth Diller is a founding partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), an interdisciplinary design studio based in New York that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. The firm's built work includes the Highline elevated park in New York, Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art, the Blur Building in Switzerland, and the redesign of Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York. DS+R's portfolio also includes installations, exhibits, and performance pieces and contributions to architectural theory and criticism. DS+R has received numerous accolades including the first MacArthur "Genius Grant" awarded to an architecture firm, a retrospective of their work at the Whitney Museum of American Art, an inclusion in Time magazine's 100 most influential people, and a selection as Fast Company's most innovative design firm. Diller, a professor of architecture at Princeton University, has given two TED talks: "The Blur Building and other tech-empowered architecture" and "A new museum wing. . . in a giant bubble," regarding the proposed Hirshhorn Museum expansion. Recently, the firm has been in the news for their involvement with the Museum of Modern Art's expansion project.

Reed Kroloff is the immediate past director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and is an independent architectural consultant and commentator. Kroloff was dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture in New Orleans, Louisiana from fall 2004 through spring 2007\. He arrived at Tulane just before Hurricane Katrina and helped lead the School to recovery and prominence in the post-storm environment, including raising a record $3 million in gifts and research grants, retaining 97 percent of the School's students and 100 percent of its faculty after the storm, as well as playing a significant role in citywide planning and rebuilding efforts. The recipient of the American Academy in Rome's 2003 Rome Prize Fellowship, Kroloff previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Architecture magazine. Under his direction, Architecture received more awards for editorial and design excellence than any other magazine of its type, and quickly became the nation's leading design publication. Kroloff writes and lectures widely, and is a regular visiting critic at architecture schools and professional organizations across the country.