Author Talk: Alex Krieger on "Greenhorn"

Join Alex Krieger for a conversation about his memoir Greenhorn: Episodes in an Immigrant's Life. It explores a life shaped by motion, memory, cultures and careers, which unfolds in the art of making a home in the unfamiliar. At the age of nine, Alex Krieger arrived in America with his three parents—survivors of the Holocaust. In Chicago, he finds his fourth first-grade classroom to learn a fourth language in four years. From displaced childhood the journeying continues as teacher, architect, planner of cities. With a poet's sensitivity and a craftsman's precision, Krieger reflects on that greenhorn's instinct to embrace the values of an adopted nation while remaining eyewitness to paradoxes.

Alex Krieger is Professor Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Design where he taught since 1977. An architect, planner and author, he has directed design and planning projects in American and international cities, including the reconstruction of the Bund in Shanghai. Former chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, he remains an advisor to public and educational institutions, including two terms on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. He is a founding board member of the Leventhal Map & Education Center and the co-author of Mapping Boston.