the Art institute of Chicago

chicago’s obama presidential library announces seven finalists.

Dec 21, 2015

the obama foundation today released a finalist list of seven choice – all modernist – architects for the honor of designing the presidential library in chicago.

no word on how many requests for qualifications (rfq) were sent out but 140 did respond representing 99 united states-based firms, 25 countries and 60 cities. the chosen seven represent four from new york, two from europe and one from chicago.

“the foundation received submissions from an impressive list of architects with a range of styles, expertise, and experience,” said martin nesbitt, chairman of the foundation. “we are pleased to see such a high level of interest in the design from so many highly-qualified architecture firms. these finalists offer a variety of backgrounds and styles, and any one of them would be an excellent choice.”

the obama foundation released the request for qualifications on 26 august of this year and asked for submittals by 16 september. the foundation and its advisers reviewed and summarized the responses and made recommendations to the president and first lady, who then made the final selection.

the firms are asked to return preliminary plans to the foundation during the first quarter of 2016. this process is not the traditional juried design competition, but the rfp requires defined, visual responses from each candidate to present creative ideas. it’s expected the architects will present at the white house.

of interest, the finalists have an additional challenge of providing concepts for two locations, jackson park and washington park, both founded in 1870 and linked to each other via the midway plaisance. 20 years later jackson park was developed by architect daniel h. burnham and his partner john root to site the 1893 world’s fair, columbian exposition. due to their close proximity to each other both parks attracted 27 million worldwide visitors over the fair’s six months. the final architect standing will have a big voice in which site will be chosen.

the architect will be responsible for designing the obama presidential center, a facility which will include a library holding the presidential archives, a museum focusing on the obama presidency and issues of our time, and space for programs and initiatives that advance the foundation’s public mission.

chicagoans may not recognize the names on the list, but they may be aware of their local work: adjaye’s retrospective at the art institute of chicago; piano’s modern wing at the art institute; ronan’s poetry foundation and gary comer youth center; diller scofidio + renfro is designing the university of chicago’s rubenstein forum; tod williams billie tsien architects work on the logan center for the arts also on the university of chicago campus.

the national museum of african american history and culture | adjaye associates | courtesy smithsonian

adjaye associates | london & new york
adjaye associates, has worked on projects across four continents. notable works include the nobel peace center in oslo, norway, and the smithsonian institution’s national museum of african american history and culture, currently under construction in washington, d.c. the art institute of chicago is currently running a mid-career retrospective of adjaye’s work.

new york city high line | diller scofidio and renfro | courtesy friends of the high line

diller scofidio and renfro | new york
the firm is led by three partners – elizabeth diller, ricardo scofidio, and charles renfro. their portfolio includes major institutional projects including lincoln center in new york, and the broad museum in los angeles. also, new york’s high line and the university of chicago’s future rubenstein forum at 60th street and woodlawn avenue. diller and scofidio, became the first architects to win a macarthur foundation “genius” grant in 1999.

modern wing at the art institute of chicago | renzo piano building workshop | courtesy rob cleary

renzo piano building workshop | genova, italy, paris & new york
founded in 1981 by renzo piano and no stranger to the president and first lady, as are a few others on this list, piano was awarded the prestigious pritzker architecture prize in 1998 and the aia gold medal in 2008. notable works include the modern wing at the art institute of chicago, the california academy of science, and the whitney museum’s new building on gansevoort street in new york. current projects include the palais de justice in paris, france.

poetry foundation | john ronan architects | courtesy john ronan architects/hedrich blessing

john ronan architects | chicago
john ronan architects has designed many academic and civic institutions in chicago such as the gary comer youth center where the obama foundation held its press conference to announce site selection in may 2015. other notable chicago works include the lyrical and refined poetry foundation and the gary comer college prep. ronan was awarded the aia institute national honor award for both the poetry foundation and the gary comer youth center. [ ronan interview ]

site santa fe | shop | courtesy shop

shop | new york
shop architects won the architecture design award from the cooper hewitt, smithsonian design museum in 2009. notable work includes the barclays center in brooklyn, the botswana innovation hub in gaborone, botswana, and academic buildings at the fashion institute of technology in new york and is currently designing uber’s new headquarters in san francisco.

obama library concept for hawaii’s failed bid to win the presidential center | snøhetta | courtesy snøhetta

snøhetta | new york & san francisco
originally founded in norway, snøhetta was awarded the prestigious mies van der rohe prize in 2009 for the norwegian national opera & ballet. snøhetta’s body of work includes the bibliotheca alexandrina in egypt, the expansion of the san francisco museum of modern art, and the james b. hunt jr. library at north carolina state. in 2014, obama spoke at the dedication of the firm’s national september 11 memorial museum pavilion, calling it “a sacred place of healing and hope.”

logan center for the arts on the university of chicago campus | tod williams billie tsien architects | courtesy of university of chicago/jason smith

tod williams billie tsien architects | new york
williams and tsien founded their firm in 1974. their studio — by choice — designs only institutional, academic, civic, and residential work. they were awarded the 2013 national medal of arts by president barack obama. noteworthy work designed by williams and tsien include the barnes foundation in philadelphia, the logan center for the arts at the university of chicago, and the neurosciences institute in la jolla, california. they are currently designing the united states embassy complex in mexico.

[ download rfp ]

making place: the architecture of david adjaye – the art institute chicago.

Sep 12, 2015

david adjaye | @ed reeve | courtesy of adjaye associates.

With over 50 built projects across the world, David Adjaye is rapidly emerging as a major international figure in architecture and design. Rather than advancing a signature architectural style, Adjaye’s structures address local concerns and conditions through both a historical understanding of context and a global understanding of modernism. Making Place is the first comprehensive museum survey devoted to Adjaye, this exhibition offers an in-depth overview of the architect’s distinct approach and visual language with a dynamic installation design conceived by Adjaye Associates.

Of African ancestry and raised in Ghana, the Middle East, and England, Adjaye now has offices in London, New York, Berlin and Accra. Like many international architects, he is itinerant, and his practices defy cultural borders and geopolitical categories. However, Adjaye is unique in being an African-born architect working in a global landscape. Having traveled the world studying buildings and architectural styles, most recently and extensively in Africa, he is acutely sensitive to the effects of location. A proponent for architecture from beyond the Western canon, he brings a distinctive contemporary “Afropolitan” view to his various projects.

While Adjaye has never adhered to a discrete style, his projects coalesce around certain ideas. Often set in cities struggling with diversity and difference, his public buildings provide spaces that foster links among people and explore how neighborhoods evolve, how new communities are created, and how unexpected junctures weave diverse urban identities and experiences into the tapestry of multiculturalism. Rethinking conventions, his designs speak to the specific time and place in which they were made. These ideas are expressed in important recent projects, such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a building that faces history head-on, bringing together references from across Africa and America in a visually and physically evocative design.

This exhibition, comprising furniture, housing, public buildings, and master plans, fills the first-floor Abbott Galleries and the second-floor architecture and design galleries in the Modern Wing. In addition to drawings, sketches, models, and building mock-ups, a specially commissioned film featuring Adjaye’s collaborators—an international roster of artists, the exhibition curators, and other influential figures in the art world—helps bring his projects to life and makes clear the important role that Adjaye plays in contemporary architecture today.

exhibition> making place: the architecture of david adjaye
venue> art institute of chicago | 111 s michigan avenue
dates> 19 september 2015 > 06 january 2016

above> learn from curator Zoë Ryan how a life-sized pavilion, large-scale models, full-scale fragments, and a vast array of media combine to create the perfect museum experience of David Adjaye’s architecture.

David Adjaye – Collaborations (Trailer) from Signature Films, Germany on Vimeo.

above> memo | click on image > lightbox navigation

[ memo ] The Mass Extinction Memorial Observatory, will comprise a monument to the world’s extinct species and an adjacent biodiversity education centre. Conceived as a continuous spiral of stone, it will be carved with images of the 860 species assessed as extinct since the dodo.

It will be an on-going monument, with more stones added when species become extinct. The bell of biodiversity, placed in the centre of the monument, will be rung annually on the international day of biodiversity and to mark further species becoming extinct. Sited on the Isle of Portland on the south coast of Britain, each creature will be immortalized in stone along the circular ramp that leads to the top of the 100 foot high Bowers Quarry observatory. Visitors will then walk back down the outside of the ramp to ground level.

A fitting insertion into the landscape, the project presents an opportunity to revitalize the old Bowers Quarry and to draw attention back to the natural beauty and craftsmanship of Portland. Rather than a building or shelter, MEMO is devised as a journey, exploring the relationship between interior and exterior, landscape and enclosure. The circular form resonates with Portland’s three lighthouses near Portland Bill as well as the remains of the windmills at Perryfields to the south east of Weston. The spiraling arrangement is inspired by a turreted gastropod fossil, found in particular abundance in Bower’s Quarry, the ‘Portland Screw’ (Aptyxiella portlandica). The material palette is predominantly Portland Stone to reinforce a sense of the landscape, echoing the character of part of the cliff with its exposed stone strata. The sizes of the blocks and the rhythm of the joints are alternating with an accent on the horizontal joints, while the surface of the stones is rough – like the face of a Quarry Block. The development will promote the use of local and recycled material.

Adjaye designed the observatory and exhibition centre as a gift to the MEMO charitable organisation, which is collaborating with the EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation in the US.

david adjaye earns the 2016 eugene mcdermott award.

Sep 9, 2015

david adjaye | ed reeve | view pictures ltd | alamy

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has selected Ghanaian-British architect and designer David Adjaye of Adjaye Associates as the recipient of the 2016 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, which “celebrates individuals whose artistic trajectory reveals that they will achieve the highest distinction in their fields and continue to produce inspiring work for many years to come.”

click on image > lightbox navigation

The architect will receive a sum of $100,000 and will participate in an artist residency at the Cambridge-based institution, which include a public presentation of Adjaye’s work, interaction with faculty and students, and a gala bash to bring together national and international leaders in the arts. Adjaye will also lead a keynote lecture about his own work on March 29, 2016.

“In my career I have sought to cross creative platforms, to collaborate with artists and designers from different disciplines and to focus on the creative discourse surrounding the act of making things,” Adjaye said. “I believe it is this dialogue—the cultural intersection—that moves us forward, generates new possibilities, and creates greatness. The Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT has long stood for exactly this principle, and it for this reason I am both supremely honored and supremely humbled to be named as this year’s recipient.”

In June, Knoll unveiled the Adjaye Collection, a series of African-inspired textiles designed to shatter stereotypes of the country’s creative output. His exhibition “Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye” at the Art Institute of Chicago opens this month.

[ david adjaye ] is recognized as a leading architect of his generation. Born in Tanzania to Ghanaian parents, his influences range from contemporary art, music and science to African art forms and the civic life of cities. He founded Adjaye Associates in 2000 and immediately won several prestigious commissions. Current projects include the $360 million Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington DC , the Alara concept store in Lagos , the Aishti Foundation arts and retail centre in Beirut , a new headquarters building for the International Finance Corporation in Dakar , the new home for The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Center for Art and Culture at Colgate University , and a condominium development for Four Seasons in Washington, DC.

a preview of the future… zoë ryan. graham foundation.

Nov 13, 2014

event> a preview of the future…
venue> graham foundation | madlener house 4 west burton place chicago 312.787.4071
date> 17 november 2014 | 6p cst

under the overarching title, the future is not what it used to be, the 2nd istanbul design biennial explores the potential of the design manifesto to envision and interrogate the future, now. in our contemporary context of rapid social and political change, how might design manifestos address larger issues while remaining grounded in everyday life? could the manifesto move beyond its western origins and incorporate ideas from across cultures? are new forms of media generating new forms of manifestos? zoë ryan, john h. bryan chair and curator of architecture and design at the art institute of chicago, and curator of the 2nd istanbul design biennial, will discuss its making, which is on view through december 14, 2014.

zoë ryan is a curator and writer. she is the john h. bryan chair and curator of architecture and design at the art institute of chicago where she is building the museum’s first collection of contemporary design and expanding its architecture collection. her recent exhibitions include building: inside studio gang architects (2012); fashioning the object: bless, boudicca, and sandra backlund (2012); bertrand goldberg: architecture of invention (2011); and hyperlinks: architecture and design (2010). prior to working at the museum, ryan was senior curator at the van alen institute in new york. ryan has authored and edited numerous publications, including, building with water: designs, concepts, visions (birkhauser press, 2010). ryan is often called upon as a juror and critic and has lectured on her work internationally. she has served on the advisory committee of the experimenta design biennial in lisbon, and has been a juror for the national design awards, cooper hewitt national design museum and the wheelwright fellowship, graduate school of design, harvard university. ryan is an adjunct associate professor in the school of design at the university of illinois at chicago and is a lecturer in the art history department of the school of the art institute.

this talk is presented in partnership with the architecture & design society of the art institute of chicago.

designapplause talked to zoë leading up to 2nd istanbul design biennial [ more ]

Crap food no longer the norm at museums.

Feb 20, 2013

crap food no longer the norm at museums. ale steamed mussels, ploughman’s lunch, wild boar and sage bangers and mash and cornish beef and veggie pasties. via gadling [RK]

The red cube project.

Jan 15, 2010

This city-wide art project supports 500 Ways of Looking at Modern, the Art Institute’s yearlong exploration and celebration of all things modern.
There are 500 cubes scattered around Chicago, each with its own art project.

#5 cube nbc

#22 navy pier

#107 facebook profile

#279 multiple touch

#367 cube matisse

make a cube

make a cube

make a cube

Some of these art projects will be featured in a special display at the Art Institute in Spring 2010. So keep your eyes open for a cube, or make your own. In the meantime, visit the Art Institute and see what you discover.

314 Cubes Found. Haven’t found one yet? Make Your Own