2026 Alfred Caldwell Lecture in Landscape Architecture

Please join us for the annual Alfred Caldwell Lecture in Landscape Architecture on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, from 5–7 p.m. in S. R. Crown Hall.

The Alfred Caldwell Lecture invites speakers who, like Caldwell, hold strong positions on landscape architecture, design culture, ecology, democracy, poetry, and literature; and whose life work embodies the ethical aspirations of humanity. Through reflections on commemoration, the event brings together voices from design, food, culture, and the arts to explore the intersections of land, memory, and creative practice.

This year’s speakers and participants include:

• Adrian Lipscombe, a chef, architect, urban planner, and cultural strategist working at the intersection of food, community, and economic development. She is the founder of the 40 Acres Project, an initiative focused on land access, education, and economic empowerment, and a founding leader of the Muloma Heritage Center, where she serves as interim executive director.
• Justin Garrett Moore, AICP, NOMA, a transdisciplinary designer and urbanist who is the program officer for the Humanities in Place program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. He has extensive planning and design experience—from regional and urban systems, policies, and projects to grassroots and community-focused planning, design, public realm, and arts initiatives. At the Mellon Foundation, his work focuses on advancing equity, inclusion, and social justice through place-based initiatives, built environments, cultural heritage projects, digital and ephemeral programs, and commemorative spaces and landscapes.
• Ryan Nyther, a Chicago-based jazz trumpeter known for his powerful sound and deep connection to the city’s historic jazz tradition. He has performed with legendary figures such as Fred Anderson and Von Freeman, as well as artists including Lupe Fiasco and Buddy Guy. An Artist-in-Residence at Andy’s Jazz Club, Nyther leads the Chicago Trumpet Summit and is dedicated to carrying forward the legacy of Black American music rooted in the bebop and hard-bop traditions of the 1950s and 1960s.

The Alfred Caldwell Lecture is co-hosted by The Alphawood Arboretum at Illinois Institute of Technology, the College of Architecture, the Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program,  Illinois Tech’s Office of Community Affairs and Outreach Programs, and Grow Greater Englewood.  

Caldwell was hired by Mies van der Rohe in 1944 to teach landscape architecture at the College of Architecture, and received a Master of Science in city planning from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1948. He was known for his landscape architecture projects around Chicago, including Promontory Point in Burnham Park, the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool at Lincoln Park, and significant portions of the Illinois Institute of Technology campus.