Eva Franch i Gilabert, the executive director and chief curator of New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture since 2010, has been elected director of London’s Architectural Association School (AA). The AA, whose alumni include Rem Koolhaas, Richard Rogers, and Zaha Hadid, and which calls itself a “participatory democracy,” put the choice of director up to a vote of more than 1,000 students and employees. Franch received 67 percent of the votes cast, far more than the other finalists, Pippo Ciorra, senior curator of MAXXI Architettura in Rome, and Robert Mull, head of architecture and design at the University of Brighton. Franch, who is still negotiating the terms of her employment contract, will replace Samantha Hardingham, who has served as interim director since Brett Steele, a Texan, left last year to become a dean at UCLA. She is the first woman to be elected director of the AA.
In a presentation prior to the vote, Franch said, “The AA possesses an unparalleled combination of rigor and madness, one that should be nourished and cultivated.” She later told RECORD that she felt obligated to more than just the AA’s 750 students: “We are going to be doing great things, and I want to make sure we share them with the global community.”
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