Event> University of Pennsylvania Hosts Paolo Portoghesi
Central Mosque, Rome (1974)
With architectural discourse today so focused on the impact of digital design, it is hard to remember that 20 years ago all architects talked about was postmodernism. The discussion began with the publication of Robert Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture and Aldo Rossi’s The Architecture of the City but became more focused and intense with the opening of an exhibition devoted to the theme.
Event> What Comes After Postmodern Architecture?
Rafael Viñoly (Photo by Adam Friedberg)
- What Comes After Postmodern Architecture?
A Conversation with Rafael Viñoly - Museum of the City of New York
- 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd Street
- New York
- Tuesday, April 5 at 6:30pm
Join Julie Iovine, executive editor at The Architect’s Newspaper, tomorrow (Tuesday) evening for a compelling discussion with architect Rafael Viñoly at the Museum of the City of New York at 6:30pm. The topic for the night, “What Comes After Postmodern Architecture?”, will tackle the state of New York City architecture.
The recent building boom in New York City has radically altered the look and feel of the city and added considerably to the list of starchitects currently reshaping New York’s iconic skyline. It has also helped redefine boundaries of the eclectic pluralism of postmodern architecture. How do we label the current architectural style of the last decade? Is there a post-postmodern?
Reservations required. Call 917-492-3395 or purchase tickets online through MCNY. Tickets: $12 for non-members, $8 for seniors & students, $6 for museum members.
Event> Tobias Wong at SFMOMA
Gold-plated objects of daily life and a brooch made of Kevlar by Tobias Wong.
- Tobias Wong
- SFMOMA
- 151 3rd St.
- San Francisco
- Through June 19
Tobias Wong, the so-called “bad boy” of design, has his first solo show at SFMOMA. The honor comes posthumously, as Wong died in 2010 at the age of 35. Henry Urbach, SFMOMA’s Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design, developed the exhibit, which features over 30 works by the late artist/designer.
Wong’s designs, which he commonly referred to as “postinteresting” and “paraconceptual,” often played with the subversion of today’s consumer culture and the obsession with wealth and the toys that often accompany it, as well as post-9/11 American anxiety and its material manifestations.
Last Chance> Paradise Lost in New York
Courtesy Andrea Blum
- Paradise Lost by Andrea Blum
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co
- 530 W. 22 Street
- New York, NY
- Through March 5
The dialogue between architects and artists in New York is one of the great-if often over looked- strengths of practice in this city. In fact, many architects visit New York not to see the latest building, but the exhibits in its galleries and museums. It has been the case, at least since MOMA’s epic modernism exhibit of 1932 and later Frederic Kielser’s Endless House series of exhibitions that the conversation between architects and artists in this city is endlessly complex and without equal in any other city.
Event> Elegy: Reflections on Angkor in Beverly Hills
(Courtesy John McDermott)
- Elegy: Reflections On Angkor, Photographs By John McDermott
- Sundaram Tagore Gallery
- 9606 S. Santa Monica Blvd.
- Beverly Hills, CA
- Through March 12
In Elegy: Reflections On Angkor, John McDermott’s monochromatic photographs of the famous Hindu-Buddhist temple complex in the jungle of Cambodia are a haunting paean to an inspiring and sacred place. Made up of a complex of temples and holy spaces, which the World Monuments Fund called “one of the most significant buildings erected during the ancient Khmer empire,” Angkor is a site under siege from an influx of tourists as well as the elements of modern day life. Using specialized black and white film, McDermott captures the ghostly grandeur of the former the seat of the Khmer empire and produces sepia-toned silver gelatin prints, like Twisted Tree, Ta Prohm, 2001 (after the jump). He photographed the temple complex at Angkor before restoration efforts began on this UNESCO World Heritage Site, providing a glimpse of monuments in a state that no longer exists.
Quick Clicks> On Decq, Walkup, Toxic Town, Pei OK
Shanghai Information Center by Odile Decq (Courtesy Odile Decq)
Odile Speaks. French architect Odile Decq, designer of the recently completed Macro Museum in Rome, will be delivering a lecture at Hunter College in New York on Friday, March 4. The event takes place on the second floor of the MFA building (450 West 41st Street) at 6:00 PM.
Walk-way-up. At 45 stories, a skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela could be the world’s tallest walk-up. The New York Times has the story of the stalled tower that’s now home to some 2,500 squatters. While the building lacks amenities like an elevator, proper bathrooms, or guardrails, it’s said to offer a commanding view of the surrounding city.
Toxic Town. Forbes ranks the ten most toxic cities in America and Philadelphia rises up as champion – toxic champion. Based on air and water quality, Superfund sites, and data from the EPA, the list generalizes that the west coast suffers from morbid air quality while New York, 4th worst, could improve its water quality.
Pei Okay. The Wall Street Journal reviews I.M. Pei’s Manhattan Centurion apartment building and finds that it “embodies an unfussy, functional, and elegant ethos that elevates it well above the schlocky residential construction now omnipresent in New York City.” Pei collaborated with his son on the project, which might not be their last.
Pratt Lectures on Architecture and Planning
If you’re an architect interested urban planning issues or a city planner interested contemporary architecture relationship to the city this is a lecture series for you! Created and organized by the Pratt Institute’s Program for Sustainable Planning and Development features planners and architects engaged in rethinking contemporary Preservation, sustainability, and urban design.
Invited lectures include; Jirge Rigau a Puerto Rican preservationist, Andrew Genn project director of New York’s comprehensive waterfront plan and a young Mississippi architect Whitney Grant who founded the Jackson Community Development Center.
They will all be addressing the fundamental questions facing today’s cites and attendees will be encouraged to ask questions of the lecturers. It takes place in room 213 of Pratt’s Manhattan campus at 144 West 14th Street and it starts with drinks at 5:30. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Video> Exhibition Recalls NY′s Lost Garden of Eden
Adam Purple's Garden of Eden in the Lower East Side (Photo by Harvey Wang)
As he watched his Manhattan neighborhood crumble and burn around him in the urban decay of the 1970s, Adam Purple decided to build a garden. For roughly a decade from the 1970s until 1985, Purple’s Garden of Eden earthwork expanded with concentric circles as more and more buildings were torn down. Photographer Harvey Wang is marking the 25th anniversary of the garden’s destruction with an exhibition at the Fusion Arts gallery running through February 20.
Click through for more info and a video about the exhibition.
New Boldface Names from the League
LentSpace in New York by Interboro Partners (photo: Michael Falco/The New York Times)
The Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices program is one of the country’s most prestigious venues for showcasing significant design talent. This years list is no exception, with a mix of young and more established firms, working in a variety of scales and formal and social approaches. The lecture series will begin on Wednesday, March 9 with Brooklyn’s Interboro Partners and Lateral Office of Toronto. Read More
Robert Moses Goes to the Opera
Robert Moses in 1938 (Courtesy CUNY)
This Saturday, January 15, the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra will lift their bows and the ghost of Robert Moses will flood the World Financial Center Winter Garden. Gary S. Fagin composed Robert Moses Astride New York from which the music will be drawn. A vocal performance by Rinde Eckert will accompany the score, but best of all, it’s free.
Series to Examine the Future of American Design
The Raw Clock by Stanley Ruiz (Courtesy MAD)
Dan Rubinstein, editor-in-chief of Surface magazine, is curating a series of lectures at the Museum of Arts and Design evaluating the future of American furniture design. Dubbed “The Home Front: American Furniture Now,” the five-lecture series begins this Thursday, January 13 as leading furniture retailers present their views on the difficulty selling American design. In March, AN‘s own executive editor Julie Iovine will lead a roundtable panel called “Drafted” on the importance of American design for architects and designers.
Graham Selling Books, Still Likes to Party
Many have lamented the disappearance of so many architecture book stores in recent years, chief among them the much-missed Prarie Avenue Books in Chicago. The Graham Foundation is doing their part to begin to fill that void by selling a selection of books at their stately home, the Madlener house.
Tonight, the Foundation is hosting a holiday party and book store launch, from 5-8pm. The delightful exhibition, Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, is also on view. Stop by and stock up. The Graham Foundation, 4 West Burton Place, Chicago.
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