by Susan Horowitz
Through an international project about Bauhaus-influenced architecture that has been rediscovered, I came to focus on Ben-Ami Shulman (b. Jaffa 1907–d. Los Angeles 1986), who was posthumously recognized …
Category: Architecture
LOUISE BRIGHAM: Adventures of a Scrap Artist
By Antoinette LaFarge
“Two summers on the island of Spitzbergen,” wrote Louise Brigham in 1909, “taught me, more than all previous experiments, the latent possibilities of a box.” The book she published that year, Box Furniture, is indeed a testament to the possibilities of a box—and not just any box, but specifically the packing crates then used to ship all kinds of ordinary consumer goods. Brigham found in those humble, cheaply made boxes inspiration for a unique system of furniture design based entirely on recycled packing crates.
Modern Architecture’s Legacy in a Renaissance-era Czech City
By Monica Strauss
Around the turn of the century in Olmütz, a small town in the Czech Republic, (known as Olomouc in present day) a Jewish community flourished. With its impeccable examples of Gothic and Baroque architecture and connection to the Hapsburg Empire, it was known as the “Moravian Rome”. However, its young people were increasingly turning to cosmopolitan Vienna for intellectual stimulation. When the onset of World War I sent many of them home to Olmütz, they tried to maintain that high level of cultural exchange they had experienced in the Kaiserstadt.
Built, World at Savannah College of Art and Design, SCAD Museum of Art
By Bansie Vasvani
Built, World investigates architecture and structural forms as articulations of injustice and longing. For some artists, freedom from oppression is expressed through their constructed worlds, while the impact of loss and displacement reverberate through some of the strongest works in the show.
A Foot Forward, or Foot in Mouth?
By Krystina Mierins
In March 2015, the Carnegie Museum of Art announced that Ingrid Schaffner will curate the next Carnegie International (CI), the second oldest survey of contemporary art in the world. Over the next three years, Schaffner will attempt the Herculean task of assessing and distilling contemporary art from around the globe. Of particular interest is the Hall of Sculpture, a room that has proven to be highly appealing to artists and curators, but is riddled with challenges.
An Alter-Ego of Consequence: Artist Katarina Burin and the Architect Petra Andrejovna-Molnár
By Glenn Harcourt
It is easy to imagine both the increasing complexity of the task and the frisson of guilty (or not so guilty) pleasure that must have marked the slow unfolding of this project: the construction of a historical alter-ego through the elaboration of a virtual archive, and the creation of an alternate life, and an alternate world, within the actual world of interwar Eastern Europe. But to what end?
The Book of Gregor Schneider: Will It Be His Most Lasting Artwork?
By Krystina Mierins and Carrie Paterson
Gregor Schneider’s Die Familie Schneider is part haunted house, part palimpsest, an installation shown originally in two doppelgänger East London counsel flats, and which has now been compiled into an illustrated book. The lauded German artist, who has made his name building claustrophobic rooms, has a secret—and he’s not telling.
Survive the Future: A Lesson on Megastructures with Glen Small
Interview by Anne Hars
A founder of Sci-Arc, Glen Small is “one of the dear eccentrics of American architecture … and an early leader in the movement for green building,” according to Michael Sorkin. In a series of email exchanges with Anne Hars, Small sheds light on present conditions of urbanity and ecological crisis through a brief lesson on the megastructure movement in architecture.
The Death and Life of Great American Houses: Kyong Park on Detroit and 24260 Fugitive House
By Martina Dolejsova
Kyong Park’s project 24260 Fugitive House has been an exploration into the nature of Detroit as a “white flight” city, as well as the destruction and devaluation of homes. House 24260 needed to escape before it was next.
Charles Long’s Eco-Decadence Redefines the Contemporary Austin
By Seth Hawkins
In a city with the motto “Keep Austin Weird,” The Austin Contemporary—known for its avant-garde, edgy programming—has renovated its flagship, the Jones Center. From January through March 2014, the Jones Center hosted artist Charles Long’s massive collaborative installation “CATALIN,” a true Gesamtkunstwerk combining sculpture, music, scent, light, kinetics, video, theater, and new technology into one spectacle.
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