Inaugural Lecture - Professor Taibat Lawanson: Curating African Urban Futures: Heritage, Sustainability and Phantoms of Utopia

Professor Taibat Lawanson gives her inaugural lecture at the Budden Lecture Theatre on Tuesday 3 November, from 6.30pm to 8pm. It's titled Curating African Urban Futures: Heritage, Sustainability and Phantoms of Utopia, and it's hosted by the Liverpool School of Architecture at the University of Liverpool, 25 Abercromby Square, L6 9ZN.

Lawanson is the Leverhulme Professor of Planning and Heritage in the School of Architecture, an urban planning and development expert with a focus on African cities. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, in Nigeria, and spent 22 years there as Professor of Urban Management and Governance at the University of Lagos. While at Lagos, she co-directed the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development and led the Pro-poor Development Research Cluster.

Her work reaches well beyond the lecture theatre. She sits on the International Advisory Committee for UN-Habitat's World Cities Report, the international steering committee of Future Earth's Urban Knowledge Network, and the World Economic Forum's Global Council on Experience and Lifestyle economy. She's also a World Social Science Fellow of the International (Social) Science Council. Closer to home, she leads the Leverhulme Trust-funded Urbanism and Coastal Heritage Lab and directs the Global Urbanism and Heritage masters.

The lecture runs from 6.30pm to 8pm, with a drinks reception starting an hour earlier at 5.30pm if you want to arrive early and chat before it kicks off.