High Arrives at 2010 Venice Biennale of Architecture
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New Blog Features Behind-the-Scenes Look at U.S.
Pavilion and “Workshopping: An American Model of
Architectural Practice” 8/25/10 The High Museum of Art, along with co-organizer
306090, Inc. arrived in Venice yesterday and is preparing
for the August 29 opening of “Workshopping: An American
Model of Architectural Practice” at the U.S. pavilion at La
Biennale di Venezia, the 12th International Architecture
Exhibition. La Biennale exhibition will be on view through
November 21, 2010. The High has created a new blog from Venice to feature
the preparations for the opening and a behind-the-scenes
look at the exhibition and the U.S Pavilion.
http://highfromvenice.wordpress.com/ “Workshopping” explores the role of the
trans-disciplinary collaborations in architecture,
spotlighting seven architecture projects with a focus on
research and social engagement. The architectural groups
include: ·
Archeworks design school (Chicago), “Workshopping” is co-curated by Michael Rooks, Wieland
Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the High
Museum and Jonathan D. Solomon, founding editor of 306090
Books and Acting Head of the Department of Architecture at
the University of Hong Kong. The High Museum has partnered
with 306090 to co-organize the exhibition, which will be
designed by native Atlanta artist Danielle Roney. The U.S.
Pavilion is presented by the Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, which
supports and manages the official United States
participation at selected international exhibitions. For the American pavilion, Rooks and Solomon present the
architect as a force for change. The exhibition
highlights projects in which a designer identifies an urban
problem or condition and initiates research into its
foundation and potential solutions without prompting by a
client assignment or proposal request. The designers then
engage their design skills and insights to catalyze action. “We wanted to use this platform to propose that
architecture constitutes the shared space of ideas in
research, social engagement, and public-private
initiatives—the foundational values of American
architectural practice,” said Michael Rooks. “Workshopping” assembles a group of architects who are
actively redefining the role of the discipline, initiating
collaborative projects which stake out exciting new
territory. This includes experiments with new materials and
structures to produce spaces for public enjoyment, research
into how cities and regions can ensure social and
environmental sustainability, and examples of how
public-private partnerships can generate vibrant
communities," said Jonathan Solomon. The projects featured in the exhibition constitute a
uniquely American model of architectural design and economic
development, defined by a reliance on public and private
sector collaborations and often aided by government,
foundation, and non-profit support. The exhibition
highlights the evolving relationship between designer,
builder, and client in cities across America, as it focuses
on projects and collaborations rather than individual
practices, and on process and impact rather than product. Following is an overview of the architectural groups that
will be included in the exhibition “Workshopping: An
American Model of Architectural Practice” at the U.S.
pavilion this fall: Archeworks—an alternative design school in Chicago
co-directed by Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn, and co-founded
by Stanley Tigerman and Eva Maddox in 1993—has a history of
advocating, designing and building public open spaces and
community infrastructure in close collaboration with
neighborhood residents, community non-profits, cultural
institutions, and public/private partners. Archeworks'
design projects, including the “Mobile Food Collective,”
inspire collaborative action to imagine and invent
healthier and ecologically sustainable cities. cityLAB at UCLA/AUD—with Roger Sherman Architecture and
Urban Design—has since 2006 supported a series of projects
concerned with contemporary urban issues, urban design, and
the architecture of the city. Specifically, cityLAB is
charged “with exploring the challenges facing the 21st
century metropolis through research and design, expanding
the possibilities for our cities to grow more livable,
sustainable, and beautiful.” Their “Chia Mesa” project marks
the transformation of ubiquitous, but struggling strip malls
into a prototype and a recovery strategy for Phoenix,
Arizona in order to help the city develop a singular
architectural image of its own. Hood Design Studio—led by Walter Hood, a California-based
urban landscape designer and artist and professor at U.C.
Berkeley—continues its longtime focused research program
with projects that consider the impact of greening on urban
environments of different scales through public/private
collaboration. Hood’s career as an academic has allowed him
“to pick and choose projects,” a luxury he has exercised
carefully and often polemically, working nearly exclusively
in the public realm and often in the inner city. He
proactively seeks projects for the chance to create spaces
that serve newly evolving public uses and opportunities that
help knit together diverse communities through new thinking
about open public spaces. MOS—a dynamic young firm led by architects Michael
Meredith and Hilary Sample—has completed a number of
installation scale projects for public and private
institutions including the 2009 MoMA PS1 “Warm-Up Pavilion,
Afterparty,” and a temporary puppet theater for conceptual
artist Pierre Huyghe at the Carpenter Center at Harvard
University. Sample and Meredith are recognized as leaders of
a younger generation of architects for whom
multidisciplinary research approaches are second nature.
Their work combines materials research, innovative
structural forms, and social engagement to create spaces for
urban enjoyment. MOS will create a site-specific
installation in the courtyard of the American Pavilion that
will provide a space for social interaction and dialogue. Anthony Fontenot, Guy Nordenson and Catherine Seavitt are
working to apply their years of research to push the
development of soft infrastructure alternatives to the
conventional hard engineering storm and flood mitigation
approaches still holding sway in New Orleans and elsewhere.
The collaborative initiative of Nordenson, Seavitt and Adam
Yarinsky (ARO), winners of the 2007 American Institute of
Architects’ Latrobe Prize, which resulted in the acclaimed
book On the Water: Palisades Bay, along with research on the
New York Upper Harbor at the Princeton University and on New
Orleans by Fontenot (Exposing New Orleans) and the LSU
Coastal Sustainability Studio (CSS), have been harnessed to
model storm surge and flooding to evaluate the effectiveness
and opportunities of break waters, islands, wetlands and
other 'soft' storm barriers. John Portman & Associates—an Atlanta based firm—sets the
standard for an initiative based approach to architectural
design with its Peachtree Center project. Still evolving
with new buildings and open spaces, Peachtree Center
illustrates how a design-led business can create a positive
and powerful effect on the stability and growth of a city.
Portman represents a unique model of practice, wherein the
architect directly engages contextual socioeconomic drivers
and responds by purchasing and assembling land, financing
and designing the buildings, infrastructure and public
spaces that define the project. The result in the case of
Peachtree Center is a sixteen block project that serves as a
significant network of social spaces and economic engine for
the city of Atlanta. Terreform—led by Michael Sorkin—undertakes self-initiated
investigations into local and global issues and works on
independent environmental planning initiatives on behalf of
raised expectations and enlarged debate. Its “New York City
(Steady) State” is an ongoing research project that asks if
New York City can become completely self-sufficient within
its political boundaries. The study aims to produce not
simply a dramatic new plan for the future of New York but to
compile an inventory of best practices and morphologies that
are relevant to cities around the world. For more information on the Bureau of Educational and
Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State, please
visit
exchanges.state.gov. La Biennale di Venezia La Biennale di Venezia has for over a century been one of
the most prestigious cultural institutions in the world.
Ever since its foundation in 1895, it has promoted
contemporary culture, new ideas, and artistic trends through
major international exhibitions. La Biennale Architettura
was founded in 1980 with the Strada Novissima exhibition
space at the Arsenale Corderie, alongside the first
International Architecture Exhibition directed by Paolo
Portoghesi. La Biennale Architettura 2010 is directed by
Pritzer-Prize winner Kazuyo Sejima, who will curate the 12th
International Architecture Exhibition “People Meet in
Architecture.” To obtain media credentials for the August
26, 27 and 28 vernissage and for other information about La
Biennale, please visit
www.labiennale.org High Museum of Art The High Museum of Art is the leading art museum serving
the southeastern United States. The opening of its
critically-acclaimed Richard Meier designed building in 1983
put the High Museum on the cultural map and catalyzed the
development of midtown Atlanta, which is today a thriving,
economically vital area. In November 2005 the High opened
three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than
doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for
the arts” at the Woodruff Arts Center. With more than 12,000
works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of
Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century
American and decorative art; significant holdings of
European paintings; a growing collection of African American
art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary
art, photography and African art. The High is also dedicated
to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and
is distinguished as the only major museum in North America
to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the
field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s media arts
department produces acclaimed annual film series and
festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. For
more information about the High, please visit
www.High.org.
306090 306090, Inc. is a non-profit arts stewardship
organization that supports architect professionals and
design students by organizing publications and events geared
towards fostering a community of ideas and exchange within
the field of design. A two-time NEA grant winner, 306090 has
also been supported by grants from Graham Foundation for
Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Richard H.
Driehaus Foundation, as well as by numerous private and
institutional sponsors. Exploring contemporary issues in
architecture “from every angle,” 306090 is dedicated to
opening up architectural discourse by publishing design
projects, critical essays, and historic inquiries that are
cross disciplinary, collaborative and socially engaged.
www.306090.org The Woodruff Arts Center The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not-for-profit organization. Opening in 1968, the Woodruff Arts Center is home to the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art and Young Audiences. To learn more about the Woodruff Arts Center, please visit www.woodruffcenter.org. |
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