The Dallas Architecture Forum will present Architect Wendell Burnette, FAIA, as their featured speaker, presenting The Forum’s Fifth Annual Frank Welch Memorial Lecture to honor the late Frank Welch, the Dean of Texas Modernist architects, leading Dallas practitioner, and great friend of The Forum.

Burnette is an award-winning architect whose projects reflect many of the same key values as the late Frank Welch: space and light, context and place, organic materials that are carefully crafted, and respect for the environment and landscapes in which we live. Burnette studied at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture at Taliesin West and is a Professor of Practice at The Design School at Arizona State University. Burnette has traveled widely in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas with a focus on the southwestern states to develop unique understandings of the importance of design in harmony with its site.

Burnette’s work has been featured in over 150 publications worldwide, and has received many prestigious awards, including a P/A Design award from Architecture, three "Record House" awards from Architectural Record, and a National AIA Honor Award. Projects include custom residences in Arizona and around the country, public commissions that include the Palo Verde Library/Maryvale Community Center, the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, and the Scottsdale Teen Center, and resorts/spas worldwide including the much-acclaimed Amangiri Resort. Burnette also collaborated with Will Bruder on the Phoenix Central Library design. Wendell’s work has been exhibited at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum and he is a laureate of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.