Mónica Rivera Installed as JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor

The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts installed Mónica Rivera, professor and chair of graduate architecture, as the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor on February 28, 2023, at Steinberg Auditorium. The program included remarks from Chancellor Andrew D. Martin; Carmon Colangelo, the Ralph J. Nagel Dean of the Sam Fox School; Heather Woofter, director of the College of Architecture and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design and Sam and Marilyn Fox Professor; and Corinna Cotsen, JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen’s daughter and a member of the Sam Fox School’s National Council and WashU’s Board of Trustees.

Colangelo began the evening by sharing the significance of endowed professorships as among the highest honors the university can bestow. “Today, we recognize Mónica Rivera for innovation, innovative practice, beautifully crafted and award-winning work in the field of architecture, social housing, and sustainable design that exemplify the highest standards and aspirations of the Sam Fox School,” he said.

The professorship is named for JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen, a fashion designer and patron of the arts who started her education at WashU. Her daughter and son-in-law, Corinna Cotsen, MArch/MSCE ’83, and Lee Rosenbaum, established the professorship in her honor. “My mother valued teaching above everything,” said Cotsen. “I know that Mónica will be the kind of teacher who uses her experience and influence to help students thrive, and that she will learn much from her students as well.”

Rivera’s presentation covered several of her proudest projects, most of which were created in collaboration with her partner Emiliano López, who is also the co-founder of their internationally recognized firm, López Rivera Arquitectos, and a senior lecturer at the Sam Fox School. Rivera shared examples from their archive of inspirational photographs. As the archive grew, they became aware of patterns. “It is in the in-between and layered spaces where we find people at ease,” she said. This inspired their ongoing interest in “intermediate spaces in the ambiguous territories of transition from one state to another, which people occupy according to conditions outside the liminal space.”

Rivera continued by sharing how she and López work with an emphasis on drawing by hand, blending modern technology with traditional methods, and prioritizing low energy consumption. She showed examples of her students’ work in the Sam Fox School’s International Housing Studio in addition to a wide variety of her own projects — most with an emphasis on liminal spaces — ranging from residential homes and intergenerational housing to office buildings and hotels.

“I think of architecture as an integrative art,” Rivera said, “It’s critical for students and designers to connect how our actions have consequences not only in buildings, but also in cities and in societies,” she said. “I’m excited and feel privileged to teach and collaborate with you here and share my passion for thinking ecologically about the craft, the discipline, and the profession of architecture … as assemblies not only in the sense of putting parts together, but also in the sense of making places for bringing people together.”

Rivera, originally from Puerto Rico, is co-founder and co-director of López Rivera Arquitectos, an architecture firm based in Barcelona. Their work encompasses multiple scales, from public housing to houses, schools to hotels, furniture, assisted residences, and urban consultancies, and has received numerous international awards. Their projects Housing for Young People, Hotel Aire, and Two Cork Houses have won the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, and their Social Housing for Young People won the FAD award. Rivera came to the Sam Fox School in 2015 and, in addition to her new installation as the JoAnne Stolaroff Cotsen Professor, is also the chair of graduate architecture.