Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape and Islamic Art
Donald Albrecht, Curator of the Museum of the City of New York
Thomas Mellins, Independent Curator

Friday, November 22, 2013
6:15 – 7:15 PM
The Glass Corner
25 East 13th Street, 2nd Floor, Rm 206

Donald Albrecht is Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of the City of New York. He has curated a wide range of exhibitions, including World War II and the American Dream and Green House: New Directions in Sustainable Architecture and Design for the National Building Museum, the National Design Triennial for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and Paris / NewYork: Design Fashion Culture, 1925–1940 for the Museum of the City of New York. He has also curated profiles of individual design firms and artists—The Work of Charles and Ray Eames for the Library of Congress and Vitra Design Museum, Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future for the Finnish Cultural Institute, the Museum of Finnish Architecture, and the National Building Museum, and The High Style of Dorothy Draper for the Museum of the City of New York. He has written extensively about the relationship between architecture and film, starting with Designing Dreams: Modern Architecture in the Movies. Mr. Albrecht lectures frequently about architecture and design. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

Thomas Mellins is an independent curator and author, and has curated exhibitions for the National Building Museum, the Yale School of Architecture, and many others. His most recent exhibitions, “The American Style: New York and the Modern Metropolis,” at the Museum of the City of New York, and Doris Duke’s Shangri La: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art, was co-curated with Donald Albrecht.  Mr. Mellins has also published several books on the architectural history of New York, beginning with New York 1930: Architecture and Urbanism Between the Two World Wars, and has contributed essays to a number of publications focusing on architecture and design.

Inside Histories is hosted by the School of Constructed Environments and the School of Art & Design History and Theory at Parsons The New School for Design.