VCU Libraries Faculty Vita
Richard Lombard
Materials Curator
(Instructor)
VCUQatar Library
Room 2203, VCUQatar Library
+974-4402-0583
rjlombard@qatar.vcu.edu
Education
- MBA Columbia University
- BA Dartmouth College
Previous Professional Experience
Richard joined the library and the MFA faculty in the role of Materials Curator. In this position, he will be organizing, maintaining, and growing the school’s materials resource as well as teaching materials and fabrication methodologies to both undergraduate and graduate students. The resource intends to provide both inspirational as well as practical, hands-on materials.
Prior to arriving in Doha, Richard was working with the premiere international materials library, Material ConneXion. There, Richard was in charge of global design conferences, a quarterly publication MATTER, and ongoing relationships with art and design schools. In these capacities, he forged relationships with many of the top designers and schools in the world.
Richard holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in subjects completely irrelevant to his career (Russian Studies and International Finance), which didn’t get in the way of him working for such institutions as The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Sotheby’s in New York. He did have a relevant undergraduate minor in Fine Arts, and has taught photography and materials at Dartmouth College and Parsons/New School respectively.
Publications
- “The Reinterpretation of a Brownstone.” Loft Bookazine, 2007
- Ultra Materials: How Materials Innovation Is Changing the World – George M. Beylerian and Andrew Dent, PhD – London – Thames & Hudson – 2007 (contributor and editor)
- Various articles, MATTER magazine, 2002-2010 (writer and editor)
Research Interests
Richard is extremely interested in the intersection of materiality, sustainability, and technology. A firm believer in cross-pollination, he is continuously on the look out for materials in the dark corners of industry that have remarkable properties that can be brought to design.