The Disaster Artist: or how a Chilean Architect Got Involved (and survived) in Urban Design, and the Politics of Resilience

Date: 

Thursday, November 29, 2018, 6:00pm

Location: 

CGIS South, Belfer Case Study Room, S020, 1730 Cambridge Street

Speaker: Pablo Allard, Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; Dean at the Faculty of Architecture  at the Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile.
With Introduction by Diane Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism; Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

In February 2010, Chile suffered the sixth-largest earthquake ever recorded by a seismograph, followed by a devastating tsunami.  The extension and complexity of the damage was massive, comprising the reconstruction of more than 220 thousand homes spread over more than 20 thousand cities, towns and villages; while the newly elected President Piñera committed to have the country back in shape in less than four years. 

Pablo Allard is the 2018 Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and served as National Urban Reconstruction Coordinator at the Chilean Ministry of Housing and Urbanism on the aftermath of the 2010 disaster, leading the recovery master plans for more than 150 cities and towns. 

In his RFK Lecture, Allard will share with us the challenges and lessons learned during the Chilean recovery process, not only from the academic, technical or political standpoint, but also as a personal journey.