VCU news

By VCU News staff

An architect whose work has navigated issues of dignity, equity and justice in cultural and civic spaces will deliver the 2023 Morton B. Gulak Lecture in Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University on Thursday, Oct. 19.

Zena Howard is a principal with Perkins&Will, an architecture and design firm with 30 studios worldwide. Based in North Carolina, Howard is the firm’s global Cultural and Civic Practice chair, and her work has included complex and culturally significant projects including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington and the Durham County Human Services Complex in North Carolina.

In her lecture titled “Cultural Expression in the Built Environment,” Howard will explore individual and shared experiences at the intersection of urban design, art, history, anthropology and public policy. The Oct. 19 address, presented by VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, will be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in the Commonwealth Ballrooms of University Student Commons, 907 Floyd Ave.

Howard, who earned her undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia, has been recognized as a citizen-architect for shaping architecture through Remembrance Design, a process that responds to inequity and injustice by restoring lost cultural connections and honoring collective memory and history – and embracing the emotional connection between people and spaces.

“One of the through-lines of my life and career has been an understanding of how cultural identities manifest through buildings, parks and places,” Howard said. “With my work as an architect, I have been able to help African Americans and other underrepresented groups share their vital stories. Whether a somber memorial or a site for celebration, cultural projects offer our diverse communities a unifying sense of self and create a greater understanding that heals and transcends divisions.”

As a founding member of Perkins&Will’s Diversity and Inclusion Council and through advocacy and mentoring, Howard also advances diversity within the architecture profession.

Since 2013, the Wilder School has brought leading experts in planning, architecture or urban design to VCU each year for the Gulak Lecture, a series that honors Morton B. Gulak, Ph.D., who died in 2012. Gulak taught at VCU for 38 years and helped establish its Master in Urban and Regional Planning program, inspiring generations of students in urban design, urban revitalization, physical planning and the application of professional planning methods.

For more information and to register for this year’s Gulak Lecture, please visit wilder.vcu.edu/news-and-events/gulak-lecture/.