Phorbidden City #8: the Kimmel Center

John is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, School of Fine Arts (currently PennDesign). Since 1976, he has taught in the Department of Architecture, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, where he is full professor, teaching design studios as well as lecturing on architectural history. His specialization is in the adaptive reuse of historic buildings. While based on the university’s main campus, he has led summer study tours of Italy and Greece and has taught at the campus of Temple University Rome.  He was the recipient of his college’s Distinguished Faculty Award (1981), a Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching (1986), and the Temple University Great Teacher Award (1995)- its highest honor.

A registered practicing architect in Pennsylvania, he is the Director of Architecture and Design for Hospitality Design Group, Architects, in Chalfont PA, a firm that specializes in hotel design- new construction as well as the renovation of older buildings of historic character. Most recently, he redesigned the interiors of the Desmond Hotel at Great Valley, Malvern, PA in a style to match the traditional Chester County vocabulary.

Also an artist, he is a member (and former director) of the Third Street Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia, regularly presenting in their group shows. At the gallery, he has exhibited in four 1- and 2-person shows:  Citta di Roma: Touch and Go 2002 (the result of a sabbatical in Rome), Cita-del of Brotherly Love 2004, Phorbidden City: East West Quaker Buddhist  2006, and PHILApocalypse: a waterlogged Delaware Valley in the age of global warming 2008.  He has also his shown his artwork at the Phila AIA Gallery, the Penna Academy of the Fine Arts, the Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, the DaVinci Art Alliance, the Print Club, the Sketch Club, the Plastics Club, the Abington Art Center, the Perkins Center in Collingswood, NJ and the Arcadia University gallery. He was on another sabbatical in the fall of 2009 to work on his next 1-person show for the month of October 2010 at his gallery. Titled Roman Remix: Repurposing Sacred Spaces, it explores the expressive non-ecclesiastical reuse of some of Rome’s exquisite but unused churches.