From Storefront to AA

Although the AA School Community's recommendation will not result in a formal appointment until the AA Council carries out its final contractual obligations, the appointment is basically gauranteed, given that Eva Franch gathered 67% of 1,077 votes, compared with around 16% each for both Pippio Ciorra and Robert Mull. The three finalists were announced last month.

The choice is not a surprise to World-Architects, who interviewed Franch after her keynote at the 2016 Vectorworks Design Summit and has attended many of the Storefront-related exhibitions and events she has created. She is a fount of energy and a strong voice in the architectural community, with an emphasis on architecture's relationship with social, political, and economical forces. In 2014, she co-curated OfficeUS, the US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which aimed at producing a new space of architectural practice and produced three books in the process.

An announcement from the AA includes a couple quotes from Franch during her presentation to the school on February 22:

Directing the AA is not about being a director, but directing a project, a pedagogical project that has consequences within the knowledge production of architecture and contemporary culture. 
​The AA possesses an unparalleled combination of rigor and madness, one that should be nourished and cultivated in order to continue to defy the limits of the possible – and the impossible.

​Eva Franch follows Alvin Boyarsky, Alan Balfour, Mohsen Mostafavi, and Brett Steele as AA Directors.