S K Y L I N E | 26 | 4th of July Special
Also with conversations from the past week with Joel Sanders, Mario Gooden, Lindsey May and Ilse Cárdenas
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To mark today’s national holiday, we invited New York architect Katie Colford to bring the rigors of architectural critique to a few of our national landmarks.
Find below also conversations from the past week, and the schedule of events for the week to come.
- Nicolas Kemper
NATIONAL LANDMARKS, REVIEWED BY AN ARCHITECT
by Katie Colford
Liberty Bell
How would I rate my experience of the Liberty Bell? Well, I wouldn’t call it an “experience,” first of all. If I’m taking the time to visit a bell, I expect it to be: (a) whimsically sized—perhaps gargantuan, perhaps miniature, but not egregiously average—and (b) in working order. Here’s an idea: if you want to see a crack that meets expectations, visit the Grand Canyon.
Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial expertly blurs the boundaries between outside and inside, solid and void, stereotomic and stereotypical. By rejecting the constricting (and, frankly, outdated) notion of “human scale,” the statue of Lincoln cleverly raises the question: Is scale a sheer matter of belief? Nothing says “democracy” quite like standing next to a white man and barely reaching the height of his ankles. Five stars.
Washington Monument
I showed up to an architecture review at school once with a pencil stabbed through a piece of foam core and talked a lot about Duchamp and the critic said, “So what material are you imagining?” This felt like that.
Statue of Liberty
Talk about greenwashing! Not impressed.
Little Sur
You’ve heard of Big Sur, you’ve heard of Highway 1, but what if you could get the same view with fewer cars, fewer people, and a disappointed look on your partner’s face? Enter Little Sur. No, I didn’t put the wrong address into Google Maps. Yes, this is where we had our honeymoon. No, the rocks have always been this height; we just had a different perspective back then.
Golden Gate Bridge
Will someone please tell me what is so special about this bridge?
Am I missing something?
Is it just about the color?
Please advise.
Yosemite
I wasn’t expecting the avalanche, so I had a few questions: Where is the line between life and death for two-million year-old rocks...and for me? How many architects who talk about “geological time” have also experienced an avalanche? Do I still have a pulse? According to my therapist, the answer to all of these questions is “yes.” Go ahead, visit Yosemite for the geological time of your life!
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is more than an experience. It’s a lifestyle. And to think I went to the Liberty Bell in search of history? I’ll tell you what’s history: my legs, because I forgot this hike is uphill all the way back. I thought the bell’s crack wasn’t interstitial enough? Now I’m up to my ears in liminal space, living in a chasm until I regain feeling in my feet. But, as ever, it’s my work that sustains me. And once NCARB gets the check I asked a thru-hiker to mail for me in exchange for the rest of my food, I’ll be licensed in Arizona! So long, New York!
DISPATCHES
6/28 - STUDYING STUD
From STUD to Stalled!: Queer Space 1996–2016 with Joel Sanders & Mario Gooden, Hosted by the Architectural League of New York
On the 52nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, JOEL SANDERS and MARIO GOODEN met virtually to discuss Stud: Architectures of Masculinity, on the occasion of its 25th anniversary and republication by Routledge. An early introduction of queer theory into architectural discourse, Sanders described Stud’s origins as the “convergence of personal, professional and political forces;” his own experience as a white gay man in New York, the Reagan administration’s silence in the face of AIDS, and architectural trends like Deconstructivism, which he saw as “out of touch, politically.” A key issue at hand revolved around relevancy; what from 1996 remains useful for thinking about the built environment today, and what shortcomings have become apparent after 25 years of theoretical and political development? In short, why now?
Sanders directed the reissuing of Stud at “a younger generation of designers and scholars” as an early attempt to apply the “outside lens” of queerness onto space. But beyond its historical usefulness, Sanders sees the “organizing principle [of the book]…the necessity of interrogating conventions of practice” and “looking to the dynamic interplay between the body and the designed environments as cultural constructions” to still be of use. He did, however, confess that the original text’s binary conception of gender and exclusive focus on a White queerness is itself now out of touch. Gooden pointed out that the only image to feature people of color in the volume—taken outside the gay club Badlands—was “still fundamentally about Whiteness.” Replied Sanders, “Now we’re rehabilitating an overlooked history,” remarking that the book’s evolution “maps the shifting conceptions of gender in the design community.”
The contemporary importance of intersectionality can be seen in groups like Design as Protest, Dark Matter University, and Black in Design—which Gooden said “show a keen desire to dismantle the structures of architecture that have contributed to inequity and damaging the planet—as well as in the work of MIXDesign, “a think tank with clients” founded by Sanders. Their focus on designing inclusive spaces can be seen in their Stalled! initiative, which successfully lobbied for the inclusion of all-gendered restrooms in the latest International Plumbing Code.
When asked to speculate on the future of queer architectural practice, Sanders called for the need to “form intergenerational and intersectional alliances… we need people here to do this work.”
6/29 - Keeping a Practice
League Prize 2021: Night 3 with Lindsey May, Ilse Cárdenas, Regina de Hoyos, Diego Escamilla, Juan Luis Rivera, Hosted by the Architectural League
LINDSEY MAY of Studio Mayd and ILSE CÁRDENAS and DIEGO ESCAMILLA of Palma concluded the 2021 League Prize presentations this Tuesday with frank discussions about the reality of being a young architectural practice. Following this year’s theme of ‘Housekeeping’, each spoke on processes that sustain their young practices—with a particular focus on residential commissions—and rejected the typical format of presenting hyper-polished ‘final images’ of their work.
May began with a bureaucratic, diagrammatic breakdown of the firm’s projects, displaying what she terms “the infrastructure of the work;” systems and processes that allow for design work to happen that are often excluded in public presentations and conversations. “The majority of our work is talking about how to be successful at process,” said May, a sentiment echoed by Cárdenas: “It’s something that we talk about all the time.” This display of process is but one step in May’s argument for “a more inclusive and representative narrative” around the work of young practices, moving away from “problematic” ideas on what should count as a ‘portfolio project’ and towards “talk[ing] openly and holistically about their experiences…The discourse we need to elevate and the housekeeping we need to do in our discipline is around the very things that make up ‘the work.’” As residential projects made up 56.3% of Studio Mayd’s work, May showcased an “anatomy of a row house” through her Molding Mini Rooms, a series of explorations on the spatial capacities of molding that also reveal the framing process of this residential type.
Palma’s presentation also focused on residential commissions: mainly, the design and construction of a series of houses in the coastal town of Sayulita, Mexico. Similarly eschewing the “final image,” they presented a collage of screen recordings of all the firm’s digital meetings for an entire month. The presentation was the process: a cacophony of Zoom calls rang out while cursors whizzed around models, pages scrolled down browsers, and digital pens scribbled over jpegs. Each of the four founders spoke about the transformation of the practice during the pandemic, going from a traditional studio set up exclusively in Mexico City, to now being located across the globe: “ideas [of traditional studio culture] don’t define a successful practice…there are more just and better ways of being a firm and a team.” In a closing video, the team showcased the aptly titled Objects? Processes!, a beach installation created under a minimal set of self-imposed regulations, looking “not at a fixed way of doing things” but to “be surprised with results”.
When asked what they imagine new standards of practice to be, all agreed: “being justly paid and a focus on a smaller work environment” said Cárdenas, to which May added, “refuse the final image, put what we think is valuable in its place, change what gets awarded.”
DATELINE
The week ahead
TUESDAY, 7/6
Design + Health, The Open City Paradigm with Christian R. Pongratz, Chris Lawer, Edgar Stach, Brookshield Laurent, Simone Friso
9:00 AM | New York Institute of Technology, Venice Architecture Biennale
WEDNESDAY, 7/7
Summer Lecture Series with Pegah Rosh, Ismael Soto
10:00 AM | UCLA Architecture and Urban DesignArguments Lecture Series with Cecilia Vicuña
11:30 AM | Columbia GSAPPCITY BUILDING AS A COLLECTIVE ACT with Doug Voigt, Adam Semel
11:30 AM | Columbia GSAPPJohn Carpenter: New Ways of Seeing the Pattern with John Carpenter, Elena Manferdini
5:00 PM | SCI-Arc
THURSDAY, 7/8
Summer Lecture Series with Benjamin Freyinger, Karin Liljegren
10:00 AM | UCLA Architecture and Urban Design
FRIDAY, 7/9
The Eames House with Lucia Atwood
10:00 AM | UCLA Architecture and Urban Design
SATURDAY, 7/10
Comics in the City with Marguerite Abouet
8:00 AM | CCA Architecture DivisionWelcome to the Design Justice Network Meeting
8:00 PM | Design Justice Network
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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Four desk editors run NYRA: Alex Klimoski, Phillip Denny, Carolyn Bailey & Nicolas Kemper (who also serves as the publisher). They rotate duties each month.
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