Calendar

SIGAL Gallery & Sorg Gallery

 

Opening Reception

Wednesday, October 29, 6 - 7:30 PM

In 1984, The Washington Post began publishing a weekly column in the Saturday Real Estate Section called “Shaping the City.” Written and illustrated by Roger K. Lewis, FAIA, the column addresses a broad range of topics and issues relevant to the built environment, among them architecture, historic preservation, housing, smart growth, sustainability, transportation, and urbanism.

Lewis’ column is the only one of its kind in the United States, focusing on big-picture stories that affect the form of cities and surrounding regions. On occasion, it highlights controversial and sometimes arcane issues, including federal, state, and local public policies.

The column reaches a broad audience of real estate and building industry professionals throughout DC, Maryland, and Virginia, among them developers, realtors, architects and engineers, attorneys, construction industry workers, and bankers and investors. Of equal importance, it also reaches federal, state and local government officials who set policy and regulate development.

Lewis and his “Shaping the City” column have won numerous awards throughout the years.

Since 2007, Lewis served as a regular guest discussing “Shaping the City” issues on The Kojo Nnamdi Show, broadcast by American University Radio WAMU 88.5.

This exhibition presents more than 80 cartoons illustrated by Mr. Lewis over 30 years. The humorous, yet informative and insightful cartoons, which serve as the column’s visual marquee, will make you laugh, think, and question the world around you. Explore his work and discover some of the humorous, controversial, and sometimes arcane issues that help shape the city!

About Roger K. Lewis, FAIA

Roger K. Lewis, FAIA is a practicing architect and urban designer, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland, author, and journalist.

In 1964, Mr. Lewis received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining the Peace Corps where he served for two years as a volunteer architect in Tunisia. Thereafter, he returned to MIT where he received a Master of Architecture. From 1968 – 2006, Lewis taught architectural design at the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, which he helped to establish. Lewis began his architecture and planning office in 1969, a practice that received numerous awards for a wide range of projects, including planned communities, affordable housing complexes, private homes, public schools, recreational facilities, and civic art centers.

In 1998, the U.S. General Services Administration appointed Lewis to its Design Excellence National Peer Committee, which reviews the design of federal projects throughout the country. Today, he periodically serves as a GSA design consultant.  For more than 20 years, Lewis has also been a member of the government-appointed Design Review Board for "Carlyle" and "Eisenhower East," two redevelopment areas of Alexandria, Virginia.

Mr. Lewis has served as Professional Advisor organizing and guiding a number of significant and successful national and international design competitions that culminated in built projects.  Examples include the University of Maryland College Park performing arts center; the Catholic University of America law school; the Silver Spring, Maryland, civic building and plaza; the State of Maryland World War II Memorial; the University of Baltimore law school; and the District Architecture Center.

Professor Lewis is the author or co-author of numerous professional journal articles and books, among them “Shaping the City,” published in 1987 by The AIA Press; The Growth Management Handbook; and the 2013 third edition of Architect? A Candid Guide to the Profession, first published by The MIT Press in 1985.

Lewis is currently president and chair of the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation where he is leading the effort to create a modestly scaled commemorative work in the nation's capital that will honor the historically significant of the 1961 founding of the Peace Corps.  In November 2013, the Washington Architectural Foundation presented Professor Lewis its eighth annual John "Wieb" Wiebenson Award for Architecture in the Public Interest, recognizing Professor Lewis as "A Champion of Design for the Greater Good."

Credits

Organized by AIA|DC for the SIGAL Gallery and Sorg Gallery in cooperation with Roger K. Lewis, FAIA and generously supported by ABC Imaging.