Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi, two influential architects who have made their marks designing urban parks and cities, will deliver the 1997 Preston H. Thomas Memorial Lectures at Cornell. The subject of this year's lectures is "After Architecture: Globalization and the Normative."

Koolhaas will speak March 24 and 25. Tschumi will speak March 27 and 28. All lectures, which are free and open to the public, begin at 5:30 p.m. in 200 Baker Lab on the Cornell campus. The lectures are sponsored by the Department of Architecture.

Koolhaas most recently played a leading role in the design of a business district for Lille, France. Once a sleepy outpost in northern France, Lille has been transformed into a bustling business center due in part to the development of a rapid transit system and the nearby Chunnel, the tunnel under the English Channel that connects France and England.

He also has been awarded a major commission to develop a master plan for the extension of Universal Studio City in Los Angeles. Other works in progress include a human rights building for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Seoul National University Museum in Korea.

Koolhaas, who did graduate work at Cornell, is founder of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in London, and the author of Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan (Oxford University Press, 1976), which addresses the relationship between metropolitan culture and architecture, and co-author of S, M, L, XL (Monacelli Press, 1995).

Bernard Tschumi, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and head of Bernard Tschumi Architects of New York and Paris, is known internationally for his design of the multi-use Parc de la Villette in Paris. La Villette is a 125-acre, $300 million public park on the northeast edge of Paris containing buildings, walkways and gardens. The park is visited by more than 8 million people annually. Other works in progress include a National Studio for Contemporary Arts in northern France and a railway station in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Tschumi's works are widely exhibited; in 1994, the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented "Bernard Tschumi Architecture and Event" to coincide with the publishing of his acclaimed book Event-Cities, which explores today's architecture through its confrontation with the major programs defining the 21st century, i.e. airports, business centers, downtown areas and multimedia art centers.

The lecture series, sponsored by the Department of Architecture, has been given annually since 1976 with funds provided by Leonard and Ruth Thomas of Sennett, N.Y., in memory of their son, Preston, who was a third-year student of architecture at Cornell when he was killed in an automobile accident.