The 24th Annual McKim Lecture with Michael Imber

The Art of the Architect

At the 24th Annual McKim Lecture, presented on March 12, 2025, the ICAA was honored to welcome Michael Imber, President of Michael G. Imber Architects, as distinguished speaker.

The Art of the Architect celebrates the role that drawing and watercolor painting play in architecture. Architectural drawing as we know it dates from the Renaissance, but with the arrival of computer design programs this ancient art—formed of pen, pencil, and brushstrokes on paper—is sometimes regarded as obsolete. In his lecture Michael Imber demonstrates what a vital contribution the architect can still make at every stage of an architectural project.

Whatever the place occupied by photographs, simulations, and visual graphics in the design process of today, hand drawing still facilitates a moment of deeper connection between an architect and his environment. Unlike a snap taken on a smart phone, a hand drawing is an active response to its subject: what is understood about a place in sensory terms informs the finished design, creating buildings which maintain the balance between the way we live and the natural world around us.

Michael’s sketches allow him to visualize his environment more clearly, and they provide an immediate visual language with which he can communicate with his team, craftsmen, and clients resulting in authentic and timeless architecture connecting to the landscape.

Michael G. Imber is a native Texan who grew-up exploring the unique landscapes of the West and the architecture built by its rugged inhabitants. After an apprenticeship on East Coast with preeminent classicist Alan Greenberg, working on projects such as the Deputy Secretary of State’s office and the University of Virginia, Michael returned to Texas to form his own firm over twenty-five years ago in San Antonio.

Today, Michael G. Imber Architects is internationally known for architecture reflecting landscape and culture. As well as work spanning the U.S., Michael G. Imber Architects has worked in over a dozen countries. The firm’s projects have ranged from churches and seminaries, colleges, hotels, and town centers to ranches and houses—all unique reflections of the landscapes and places in which they are built.

Michael’s work has been widely published and he was recently named one of twenty-five ‘leaders’ in a “Who’s Who in Traditional Architecture” by Traditional Building Magazine. He was the recipient of the Arthur Ross Award in 2007 for his contribution to civic and traditional architecture and has won eight national Palladio Awards and ten Staub Awards. In 2013, Michael released his first book, Ranches, Villas, and Houses serving as a monograph devoted to his work, and in 2022 was named the Robert A.M. Stern Visiting Professor of Classical Architecture at Yale.

Michael’s new book The Art of the Architect is a manifesto for maintaining the architect’s essential tool for seeing, translating and responding to our environment—drawing. In recent years modern pedagogy has neglected this critical tool for the architect to focus on merely one tool—the computer. Michael makes an impelling case that architects are artists first, not merely technicians.

Sponsors

Thank you to our Partner Sponsors:

John B. Murray Architect

Oliveri Millworks

2025 Lead Annual Public Programs Sponsor:
RINCK

Special thanks to the One West 54th Street Foundation

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