| DETAILS: | Catholic University's School of Architecture and Planning is partnering with the Embassy of India and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations to present a lecture titled "From Gaze to Gaz: A New Interpretation of Humayun's Tomb-Garden and the Nizamuddin Area of Delhi" by James L. Wescoat Jr., Aga Kahn Professor of Architecture in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lecture is the second event in the school's 2010 Spring Lecture Series "Crossing Boundaries: Modernism and Indian Cultural Traditions." Past lecture series have explored the architecture of Peru, Norway, Austria, Finland, Switzerland and Japan in partnership with embassies in Washington, D.C. Wescoat's research has concentrated on water systems in South Asia and the United States from the site to river basin scales. For the greater part of his career, Wescoat has focused on small-scale historical waterworks of Mughal gardens and cities in India and Pakistan. Now part of Pakistan, Mughal Lahore was once part of the Mughal Empire, which lasted from the late 1400s to about 1750. He led the Smithsonian Institution's project "Garden, City, and Empire: The Historical Geography of Mughal Lahore," which resulted in a co-edited volume, "Mughal Gardens: Sources, Places, Representations, Prospects," and "The Mughal Garden: Interpretation, Conservation, and Implications" with colleagues from the University of Engineering and Technology-Lahore. These and related books have won awards from the governments of Pakistan and the Punjab. The overall Mughal Gardens Project won an American Society of Landscape Architects national research merit award. A reception will follow. The lectures are free, open to the public and offer AIA continuing education learning units. For more information, call 202-319-5188. |
