art & literature & education – Page 3

2017 chicago architecture biennial week of 3 > 9 december.

Dec 2, 2017

above > ellie abrams and meredith miller of t + e +a + m

t + e +a + m examine the ways that ruins—commonly aligned with 19th century romanticizing of authentic materiality—were always mediated through technologies of image production. ghostboxextends their material research that has previously addressed the packard plant in detroit by examining new typology: the big box superstore. these giant stores were once a celebrated destination on the urban outskirts and peripheries but they are increasingly abandoned as contemporary habits transform to online shopping. redistribution as a practice has the potential to recover a type of building that – unlike renovation, adaptive reuses, preservation, or restoration = permits the circulation of building components, taken apart, moved around, piled up, and mixed with new construction to create alternative uses. t + e + a + m is looking for a patron to make it happen.

[ 3 > 9 december calendar ]

the second edition of the chicago architecture biennial (cab) is the largest architecture and design exhibition in north america, showcasing the transformative global impact of creativity and innovation in these fields. this year’s biennial features over 141 practitioners from more than 20 countries addressing the 2017 theme “make new history.” artistic directors sharon johnston and mark lee have selected architects and artists whose eye-opening creations will invite the public to explore how the latest architecture can and will make new history in places around the world. the main exhibition is free and open to the public from september 16, 2017 through january 7, 2018. we are particularly proud to premiere our opening in 2017 in alignment with expo chicago.

2017 chicago architecture biennial week of 12 > 18 november.

Nov 12, 2017

above> super models – circular model is ‘casa rotunda’, built stabio switzerland 1980 / shown here replica by mario botta in 2017 /// rust colored model is ‘monument to the resistence’, by segrate italy 1965 / shown here replica by aldo rossi 2017

super models presents replicas of twelve models collected by german architecture museum (dam ) during the 1980s. despite the assumption that museums only knowingly show original works of art, models commissioned to replicate buildings have long been part of the culture of architectural exhibitions.

such models are understood to function as three-dimensional photographs, transferring information about the buildings that cannot be shown in galleries to visitors without claiming any status as architectural works. these models are often made by model makers and sometimes unbeknownst to the architect.

the proliferation of institutions collectin architectural materials during the 80s, however, altered the status of these objects. the new market encouraged architects to shift their production to collectable objects, like models, and to equate them with architecture itself.

super models reflects on how this simultaneously eroded and amplified attachment to authenticity entangled the work of historians, curators, and architects, ultimately modeling not history but what has become a key feature of contempary creative practice.

chicago cultural center, 78 e washington street

[ 12 > 18 november calendar ]

u.s. tax code overhaul would bulldoze incentive for restoring time-honored architectural gems.

Nov 5, 2017

above > the rookery building’s central light court and lobby, remodeled in 1905 by frank lloyd wright. photo by raymond boyd/michael ochs archives collection/getty images

u.s. tax code overhaul would bulldoze incentive for restoring time-honored architectural gems. the overhaul of the tax code unveiled thursday by house republican leaders would hit hard at one of chicago’s great cultural assets. [rk] chicago tribune

2017 chicago architecture biennial week of 5 > 11 november.

Nov 4, 2017

above > entrance installation, chicago designer ania jaworska

welcoming visitors into the main venue of the biennial, this bright, brash yellow installation has consumed a smaller, much less interesting chicago cultural centre reception desk. architect ania jaworska interrogates traditional architectural classification by subverting the physical and historic forms of the arch and the column until they are almost unrecognisable – her column provides no support and her arch creates a physical boundary instead of an entranceway. the abstract, yet functional work is a structural hybrid that challenges and almost overrides its environment in the impressively ornate chicago cultural centre entranceway.

chicago cultural center, 78 e washington street

[ 5 > 11 november calendar ]

2017 chicago architecture biennial week of 29 october > 4 november.

Oct 28, 2017

above > vertical city

vertical city brings together 15 architects to revisit the 1922 chicago tribune tower competition that attracted 263 entries from the united states and around the world. the influence and reach of this particular project drove many responses and copies.

the most famous of these was an exhibition of late-entry drawings organzied in 1980 by the chicago seven, let vy stanley tigerman, that gathered a contemporaneious cross section of architectural ideas and influences. the chicago seven’s version of the competition was decidedly paper-oriented. the 2017 chicago architecture biennial eschews drawings and presents a scaled model, 16 feet hight. a most exciting sight and experience to walk among them.

[ 22 > 28 october calendar ]

japanese fusuma photography by kenji wakasugi. ippodo gallery tokyo – ny.

Mar 10, 2016

synthesis > japanese fusuma photography by kenji wakasugi | ippodo gallery tokyo – ny / 12 e. 86th street # 507 new york city / 212 967 4899
10 march > 22 april 2016 – extended to 29 april 2016

wakasugi combines views of nature he has photographed while traveling the remote regions of the world with fusuma, decorated sliding doors. these particular fusuma have been taken from a japanese room with over four hundred years of history, and his photographs have been artfully inserted into them. this represents a synthesis of opposing worlds-of interior and exterior, light and dark, stillness and motion, film and digital, old and new.

fusuma are a form of spatial device employed in traditional japanese architecture. these sliding doors are comprised simply of wood and paper and although flimsy and have no locks, they represent a spiritual boundary, separating one side from the other, absolutely. japanese rooms are not divided physically with walls, but spiritually, using fusuma; this allows people to interact freely with the space, sometimes removing these fusuma to create a large hall or reinserting them to produce a small room.

fusuma also respond gently to nature, reflecting the four seasons. the pale brush-and-ink paintings illuminated by mid-day’s light reflecting off the tatami mats on the floor; the gold and silver leaf in designs that appear to float in the light of the moon; all transmitting the poetic charm of the period. the 16th century artist, kano eitoku, sublimated these household fittings into art through his magnificent brushwork and the japanese people experience a microcosm of nature through these paintings, in which a unique, two-dimensional expression of the world unfolds. this synthesis of art and nature on the doors dividing a space may be said to spring from the japanese views of life and death.

wakasugi says that poetic sentiment exists in the space between memories. using digital technology to boldly remove the paintings applied to the fusuma by the artists of the past, he carefully replaces them with his own photographs, creating a time and space that does not exist in reality, thereby challenging the past.

it is no exaggeration to say that wakasugi kenji’s photographs inherit the traditions of the gorgeous world of fusuma painting that were developed by such great artists as tawaraya sōtatsu or ogata kōrin.

click on an image to engage gallery lightbox

chicago architecture biennial. 20 > 26 december 2015.

Dec 19, 2015

[ 20 > 26 december calendar ] The Chicago Architecture Biennial is free and open to the general public at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. The event is supported by the City of Chicago and the Graham Foundation, with additional support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Chicago Park District. All funding for the event is privately raised, with significant investments from BP and SC Johnson.

‘chicago: how do you see?’ by norman kelley created an exciting feature on the windows of the chicago culture centre. photography: steve hall, copyright hedrich blessing. courtesy chicago architecture biennial

marshmellow sofa | george nelson | herman miller / 1956

[ pop art design ] an exhibition organized by the vitra design museum, one of the preeminent furniture and design museums in the world, pairs iconic design objects with artworks from this celebrated era to show the cross-pollination between these creative worlds. this glimpse of art, chairs, sofas, lamps, and even architecture during the culturally ebullient 1960s and 1970s. artists such as andy warhol, roy lichtenstein, claes oldenburg and mel ramos alongside designers such as charles eames, george nelson, ettore sottsass, achille castiglioni, and robert venturi.

event> pop art design
venue> museum of contemporary | 220 east chicago avenue
dates> 19 december 2015 > 27 march 2016

For a complete list of exhibitions, public programs, supporters, media partners and program partners, visit [ Chicago Architecture Biennial ] which launched 3 October 2015, and will run through 3 January 3 2016. @chicagobiennial @GrahamFound @ChiCulturCenter

trending architecture and design books. gift ideas 2015.

Dec 3, 2015

three books come to our attention. we recently picked up and read paul goldberger’s new book when he was in chicago to accept an award from the society of architectural historians and also speak at the chicago humanities festival. and designers & books suggests two titles that are trending.

building art. the life and work of frank gehry | paul goldberger | knopf
of interest, pulitzer prizer architecture critic paul goldberger has written his first full fledged critical biography, that of architect frank gehry, a story of his life that has not be told in full detail. goldberger’s goal with this book is to appeal to the general reader – the intelligent, educated reader – not just the architecture public, and his narrative is that of a storyteller more than the critic. he also makes it known that gehry had no right of review, no right to delete anything that displeased him, and though the book is positive, there are words in it that he would rather not have be there.

the book cover in the weimer republic | jürgen and holstein | taschen
a biography by antique dealer jürgen and holstein, who has spent his entire career collecting and curating catalogs on art and architecture, assembles 1,000 covers. the period between 1919-1933, the years between the first and second world wars in germany are regarded as the golden age of german publishing. expert essays discuss the aesthetic and cultural context of a spirited nation only to be driven out of the country with the rise of national socialism.

how to | michael bierut | harper collins
the first monograph, design manual, and manifesto by michael bierut, protégé of design legend massimo vignelli and partner in the new york office of the international design firm pentagram — a career retrospective that showcases more than thirty-five of his most noteworthy projects for clients as the brooklyn academy of music, the yale school of architecture, the new york times, saks fifth avenue, and the new york jets, and reflects eclectic enthusiasm and accessibility that has been the hallmark of his career.

2015 chicago architecture biennial events 15>21 november.

Nov 14, 2015

[ 15 > 21 november calendar ] The Chicago Architecture Biennial is free and open to the general public at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. The event is supported by the City of Chicago and the Graham Foundation, with additional support from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Chicago Park District. All funding for the event is privately raised, with significant investments from BP and SC Johnson.

‘makeshift’ by studio albori was another of the several site-specific installations commissioned by the biennial. photography: tom harris, copyright hedrich blessing. courtesy chicago architecture biennial

[ outlying exhibits ] Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin gives his spin on the architecture biennial’s outlying exhibits offering evidence of the power of design. Theaster Gates Stoney Island Bank is just one. (below)

the refurbished stony island arts bank at 68th street and stony island avenue houses the magazine and book collection of john h. johnson, founder of ebony and jet magazines. the brainchild of artist and urban planner theaster gates, the arts bank is vision of culture as an urban change agent / photo courtesy chicago tribune/ phil velasquez

didier faustino goes pow! again for the architectural association school of architecture.

Nov 4, 2015

Though billed as the ‘second edition’ of This is not a Love Song, it’s really the third sighting. This is however the second sighting and newest in Bedford Square. Designed by artist and architect Didier Faustino, upon invitation from the AA – Architectural Association in London, the sculpture serves as a beacon for Faustino’s presentation Undomesticated Places, an exhibition presented as two projects, one inside the AA gallery and one in the public space of Bedford Square. The two approaches underscore performative practice in the closely-linked fields of contemporary art and architecture, representative of Didier Faustino’s obsession with the location of the body in private and public space.

The first part of the exhibition, inside the building, contains the video Exploring Dead Buildings 2.0 which recalls the performance realized on the occasion of the 12th Havana Biennial in 2015. An explorer with a video device fixed on his metallic armor constructs a sensitive archaeology of the School of Ballet; a building designed by Vittorio Garatti in the early 1960s.

Outside, in Bedford Square, This is not a Love Song (the first opus of the installation paid a pop tribute to André Bloc’s interior sculptures, created in Meudon, France in 2014) has been built. This monochromatic performance-architecture platform invites events and performances, as well as providing a “speakers’ corner” for public use.

[ practical information ]
event > undomesticated places
venue> architectural association school of architecture | 36 bedford square london
date> 10 october > 12 december 2015

above> the second sighting, though the first in bedford square introduced in september 2015 / below> the inaugural sighting in meudon, 2014.

Just wondering if the missing architectural statement in the first should have somehow been retained in the second and third?

[ didier faustino ] was born in 1968 and lives and works between Paris and Lisbon.

Didier Faustino’s work reciprocally summons up art from architecture and architecture from art, indistinctly using genres in a way that summarizes an ethical and political attitude about the conditions for constructing a place in the socio-cultural fabric of the city. Spaces, buildings and objects show themselves to be platforms for the intersection of the individual body and the collective body in their use. Each project represents a concept that subverts the social context; in which seeing is experimenting beyond submission to the dichotomy of the rules that normally mark out public space and private space. The body is recentred on the basis of the social implications of the space, alerting people to the dangers of subjecting it to an ambiguity of representation that may contribute towards their forgetting its identity.

The [ architectural association school of architecture ] (AA) is the world’s oldest and most influential architecture school. Since 1847 the AA has pioneered architectural education alongside promoting and advancing the profession and the culture of the discipline; at the AA architecture is treated as a unique form of human enquiry. The AA’s students and teachers have gone on to become worldwide leaders of architecture. Through its unique unit-based system of teaching and its intensively collaborative team-based approach to learning, the school brings together disconnected worlds, fresh ideas and inspiring insights.

Alumni include Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Rogers, Will Alsop, Cedric Price and many others.