Q+A> Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, SFMOMA Architecture & Design Curator
Rendering of Snohetta’s SFMOMA expansion currently under construction (left) and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher (right).
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher was recently named the head of the department of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), filling a position vacated by Henry Urbach more than two years ago. Fletcher just completed a assessment of the museum’s architecture and design collection, and, most recently, she co-curated the exhibition Lebbeus Woods, Architect. She sat down with AN editors Nicole Anderson and Alan G. Brake to discuss her plans for the department.
The Architect’s Newspaper: What direction do you plan to take the architecture and design department?
Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher: The collection just turned 25 and so I think it was important that my colleague Joseph Becker and I, along with Henry Urbach, really undertook a collection analysis and are trying to draw on the identity and strengths of the collection: the experimental and conceptual architecture, the iconic chairs that capture every 20th century design movement, and then the Bay Area collection.
On View> Seattle’s Frye Art Museum Presents “Buster Simpson // Surveyor”
(Courtesy The Frye Art Museum)
Buster Simpson // Surveyor
The Frye Art Museum
704 Terry Avenue, Seattle
Through October 13
Buster Simpson is a Seattle-based artist who has dedicated his artistic career to developing community-focused and urban environmentalist public art projects. For more than forty years he has created site-specific, agitation and propaganda works that have not only troubled neighborhoods to think about the health of their communities but also suggested local solutions to global issues. This exhibition at the Frye Art Museum features some of Simpson’s most compelling works, filled with explicit messages and rich metaphors, such as his “Hudson River Purge” (1991), a video performance in which he addresses the problem of acid rain by dropping 42 ½-pound soft limestone discs, or “antacid pills,” into the Hudson River, neutralizing the acidity of the water. This collection of Simpson’s public artwork celebrates his artistic legacy and captures the regional and global impact of his work.
Tonight> Los Angeles Design Festival Kicks Off Two Weeks Of Events
Not busy enough, Los Angeles-based design people? You’re about to be. The third annual Los Angeles Design Festival, which takes place from June 13-30, kicks off tonight at 8:00p.m. with a party at Downtown’s Standard Hotel. The Festival, which encompasses a wide range of activities related to architecture, design, and art, has grown in size, now featuring over 40 events over two weeks.
This includes Dwell‘s west side home tours on June 15 and its east side tours on June 22; SCI-Arc’s Confederacy of Heretics symposium June 14-15; the A+D Museum’s gala Preview Party for their upcoming show Never Built: Los Angeles at Union Station on June 20; the AIA/LA’s Restaurant Design Awards on June 22; de LaB’s Pecha Kucha x Ping Pong, a competitive sharing of ideas at the Standard’s new ping pong club on June 26; and UCLA’s “Runway,” a series of back-to-back architecture presentations at the school’s new Hercules Campus in Playa Vista on June 28. The closing event is at Chinatown Design Night on June 29. This is just the tip of the iceberg, so better clear your calendars!
Getting Real In The SCI-Arc Parking Lot: Pavilion Construction Heating Up
SCI-Arc and Caltech’s DALE, under construction (Sam Lubell/ AN)
While you might not make a habit of visiting parking lots for the fun of it, if you haven’t been to SCI-Arc‘s parking lot lately, you’re missing out. Installations dot a big chunk of the concrete expanse, including Oyler Wu‘s billowing Storm Cloud installation, which was built for the school’s recent graduation; the steel frame of P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S‘s gigantic League of Shadows installation, which will be done by September, and the wooden frame of DALE, SCI-Arc and Caltech’s entry for the Solar Decathalon, which is being held this year at the Orange County Great Park.
June 21–23> Michael Graves to Keynote Dwell on Design in Los Angeles Next Week
Dwell on Design: Dwell Outdoor. (Courtesy Dwell)
From June 21 – 23 architecture and design professionals will flock to the Los Angeles Convention Center for the Dwell on Design tradeshow. With over 2,000 products, 400 exhibitors, 150 speakers, and 30,000 expected attendees, this highly anticipated three-day affair has easily become America’s largest design event.
The exhibition features 20,000 square feet of space filled with prefabricated structures that highlight the most important aspects of contemporary design. The show is divided into various sections including Dwell Outdoor, the Tech Zone, the Modern Family Lounge, Furniture, and Kitchen & Bath and features renowned leaders in industrial, home appliance, and furniture design such as Miele, Kohler, GE Monogram, Resource Furniture, and Marimekko.
San Francisco Facades+ Performance Conference: One Month and Counting!
(Courtesy Ken Yeang)
The San Francisco Facades+ Performance conference is exactly one month away! Join the conversation and rake in up to 8 AIA LU credits per day at the conference, presented by AN and enclos, July 11 to 12, 2013. An abundance of good information, networking opportunities, and hands-on workshops are on the agenda, so don’t miss the chance to attend this year’s invaluable two-day event.
Wim De Wit Stepping Down At the Getty
Wim de Wit is stepping down at the Getty. (Yoshihiro Makino)
Major news in the world of architectural scholarship. Wim de Wit, Head of the Department of Architecture and Contemporary Art at the Getty Research Institute (GRI), is stepping down. He’s moving to Stanford, where he will be Adjunct Curator of architecture and design at the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts. De Wit’s wife, Nancy Troy, has been a professor of art at Stanford since 2010.
On View> “A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living” at LA’s Hammer Museum
(Jason Schmidt / Courtesy Hammer Museum)
A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living
The Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles
Through September 8
Archibald Quincy Jones (1913–1979) was a Los Angeles–based architect known both for the glamorous homes he designed for actors like Gary Cooper, as well as his dedication to the redevelopment of middle-class housing using effective, innovative, and sustainable building methods during the 1950s and 60s. His 5,000 built projects were centered on the premise of “better living” and “greenbelt planning.” He experimented with materials like plywood, steel, and masonry block construction and intentionally built in locations where his buildings would have access to natural light, air, ventilation, and views. This exhibition is presented as a part of Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. The documentation on view—including original architectural drawings taken from the architect’s personal and professional archive, a case study house model, and vintage photographs—highlights a variety of Jones’s projects, including community developments, churches, libraries, restaurants, residential homes, work spaces, and schools.
Plan Zumthor: Will Second Time Be the Charm for LACMA Redo?
Older aerial view of LACMA. (Courtesy Bing Maps)
The rumor-mill has been churning non-stop over LACMA director Michael Govan’s and architect Peter Zumthor’s plans for the museum. Basically it looks like they are planning to take LACMA apart and start over; an effort that failed when attempted by Rem Koolhaas and OMA back in the early 2000s. The full scope of the plans will be unveiled in June, with LACMA’s exhibition The Presence of the Past: Peter Zumthor Reconsiders LACMA. But for now we’ve gleaned that under Zumthor’s plan, not only would there be a new indoor/outdoor art park, but four of the museum’s midcentury structures would be replaced by “curvaceous modern glass structures.” That basically includes everything but the Bruce Goff pavilion and Renzo Piano’s new structures. Let’s see if the second time’s the charm.
Get On The Road This Sunday
The exhibition will take place inside and around several U-Haul trucks. (Courtesy On The Road)
If you’re near LA’s Little Tokyo this Sunday you should check out On The Road, a one day exhibition made up of 17 emerging studios and individuals showing off their in-progress investigations inside and around a caravan of U-Haul Trucks. The location: the corner of Temple and Alameda Streets, a.k.a. the MOCA Parking Lot. The date, June 2, and the location, MOCA, are not an accident. They match the original plan for MOCA’s New Sculpturalism show, which has been delayed until later in the month. “The MOCA show looks at the last 25 years, we want to look at the next 25 years,” explained curator Danielle Rago, who notes that the exhibition will showcase the city’s experimental tradition, but in a completely new way, for instance blurring the boundaries that once divided architecture from other disciplines. Participants’ models, boards, and installations will be grouped three to four in a truck, and some will be shown outside the trucks altogether. Designer Jimenez Lai, for one, will be putting together a “six hour endurance drawing project” on the exterior of the trucks. The show will take place on Sunday from 12pm to 6pm. See previews of the work below.
Los Angeles Architect Planning Best Play Structure Ever
Coolest. Playhouse. Ever. (Shawn Keltner)
LA architect Shawn Keltner, whose day job is lead designer at Los Angeles-based tecDESIGN (the design branch of Swiss firm tecARCHITECTURE), is doing some important work on the side: developing a wondrous play structure for his two young daughters, Kelty and Kree, aged five and two. The irregularly-shaped, 50-square-foot building, which he will put together on his family’s sloped lot in Glassell Park, will be made out of home-made SIPs and clad with Hardie Panels and polycarbonate.
After Fire, Redevelopment Effort Lifts Utah Temple Onto Stilts
Provo Temple Construction (hansenbrian/Flickr)
In Provo, Utah, a new temple is rising, literally, on the site of a disaster. When a devastating fire ripped through the 112-year-old tabernacle in 2010, destroying its wooden interiors and steeples, community members mourned the loss of their historic house of worship. But with the building’s 7-million-pound stone shell still standing, a new plan was devised to transform its remains into a temple. Now the building’s skin, reinforced by shotcrete and steel beams, has been “lifted” 40 feet off the ground on steel and concrete piles.
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