ARCHITALX History

In 1986, Lori Rohr had just moved to Portland from Boston where she had enjoyed attending not one, but three architectural lecture series. Sitting over a kitchen table with Judy Schneider discussing the lack of such lectures in Portland, the two decided to do something about it. And thus Architalx was born. It took a lot of hard work for two relatively unknown designers to gather the necessary support, but for four years Lori, Judy, and a board they assembled created a lecture series which was presented in the Baxter Library Building, then owned by the Portland School of Art (Now Maine College of Art). In those first years speakers were regional architects, friends by at most two degrees of separation from members of the board. The series was a success, but became a casualty of a poor economy after the 1989-1990 season.

The seeds had been sown, though, and in 1992 Carol Wilson, as president of AIA Maine and in collaboration with Greater Portland Landmarks, the Portland Museum of Art, and the Maine State Landscape Architects (now the Maine Section of the Boston Society of Landscape Architects), assembled a group made up of a representative of each organization to start a new lecture series. This series would include not only architects, but also landscape architects, engineers, and interior designers as speakers. The lectures would be presented at the Portland Museum of Art. Again, the series was a success and the original board agreed that the Architalx name should be conferred on the new lecture series. In 1998 Architalx registered as an independent, 501(c)(3) organization. The rest, as they say, is history. With a combination of hard work, determination, good connections and fearlessness, the Architalx Board has consistently drawn award winning, cutting edge architects and designers to Portland to speak each spring.