Lecture & Book Release

Monday, October 19, 2026
5:15 pm - 6:30 pm CT

1 HSW CEU Credit will be offered
Thomson Hall (Room 202), Richardson Memorial Hall
Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118

This lecture is open to the public.

Join us for a celebration and release of the latest edition of The ReView, 4th Edition: Emergency, featuring the work of students and faculty from the 2024-25 academic year.

This event will include an invited lecture by noted architect Jing Liu, followed by a discussion with faculty book contributors Assia Crawford, Sonsoles Vela Navarro, and Shawna Meyer.

Pre-lecture reception bites and drinks and book sales begin at 4:30pm in the Favrot Lobby (2nd Floor) in Richardson Memorial Hall. The main event begins at 5:15pm in Thomson Hall (Room 202) in Richardson Memorial Hall.

This event is also part of the Fall 2026 Lecture Series and Public Programs at Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment, under the same theme of "Emergency: Planning and Adaptation".  Discover more lectures at the Fall 2026 Lecture Series and Public Programs: "Emergency: Planning and Adaptation."

LECTURE SUMMARY

For half a century, value migrated out of European city centres while the inner city was left to hollow out. Brussels lived that story more visibly than most, and it is now reversing it. Marnix Galle will trace that reversal through the work he has led since 2001 — first at Allfin, the developer he founded, and since 2016 at Immobel, a listed Belgian real estate developer — taking obsolete twentieth-century stock in central Brussels, office towers built for a way of working that has gone and blocks that had fallen out of use, and returning it to the city as places where people live, work and gather. Oxy, Lebeau and Brouck'R are recent evidence. The lecture looks at what made those projects possible: the capital, the permits, the politics and the design decisions, and the energy — in both directions — that drives changes of this scale or impedes them. Each of the three came close to failing before it prevailed. New Orleans faces its own version of the same question, and the lecture is offered in that spirit. 

This lecture is supported by a Walter Wisznia Memorial.

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Jing Liu has been practicing for more than 15 years, working on a wide range of projects both in the US and abroad. Through building practice and interdisciplinary research projects, Liu has led SO–IL in the engagement with the socio-political issues of contemporary cities — in projects like the Artists Loft North Omaha and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in Cleveland. Her projects range from artistic collaborations with contemporary choreographers and visual artists to master plan and major public realm design in cities like Melbourne and Indianapolis.
Liu brings an intellectually open, globally aware, and locally sensitive perspective to architecture. Her curiosity and artistic imagination allow her to bring a nuanced cultural perspective to the table. Her keen skills in combining digital technology with traditional craft and firm belief in design’s ability to re-engage people with the physical world around them allow the buildings she designs to become places of exchange that welcome interpretation and transformation.

Liu leads all of her projects from concept to realization and considers carefully all aspects of design and construction — from the building’s presence in a community, down to the fasteners in a window. She believes strongly that design should and can be accessible to all, and that architecture offers us an open platform to nurture new forms of interaction. To that end, Liu sees community engagement and collaboration across disciplines as central to her role as the design lead.

Questions? Please reach out to Ben Neal at bneal1@tulane.edu.