S K Y L I N E | Does architecture always have an audience?
S K Y L I N E | Does architecture always have an audience?
And should we be designing for it?
Issue 107. Thirty-four is the magic constant of a four-by-four normal magic square. It’s also the number of our next print issue. Subscribe and we will mail you a copy!
Things got a little tense at last Thursday’s “This is Not Contemporary” conference, a two-day event of marathon talks held at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), where I teach. Andrew Holder, a professor at the Harvard GSD and co-editor (with K. Michael Hays) of Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech, had just presented the theoretical framework underpinning the book, when UIC’s Francesco Marullo pressed him on a particular point. For Holder, architectural projects show their generosity when they reveal, to an audience, their underlying interests and motivations, but Marullo countered that architecture should first and foremost be for its occupants. The discussion continued on the sidelines with others weighing in on whether architecture should ever exist for the delight of a relatively small circle of like-minded practitioners and academics.
The issue at hand, of course, was not semantics but ethics. Whether we (should) design for it or not, architecture is always beholden to an audience beyond the client/user/occupant: the nebulous “public,” which includes fellow designers but also neighbors, community representatives, even animals, as Joyce Hwang reminded us in her Monday talk at the Illinois School of Architecture. In certain contexts, especially in the case of curatorial work, the architect’s role might be to problematize issues and spark public dialogue, as argued by former and current curators of the US Pavilion in a panel discussion over the weekend and as evidenced by the Cooper Union’s latest show, Confronting Carbon Form. But what of brick-and-mortar buildings? Speaking from San Francisco, Jesica Amescua Carrera described the work of her practice Comunal as one of facilitating community-based participatory design. While Comunal’s work hasn’t gone unnoticed by the architectural establishment—they have received numerous awards in recent years—their conception of practice isn’t predicated on aesthetic outcomes or theoretical outlooks.
The UIC conference panelists may have struggled to articulate the contemporary condition, but writers in this week’s Skyline engage in the equally challenging task of simply being in and of their time.
— Palmyra Geraki
DISPATCHES
3/16: Participation as Pedagogy and Practice
SAN FRANCISCO (ZOOM) — JESICA AMESCUA CARRERA, co-founder with Mariana Ordóñez Grajales of Comunal: Taller de Arquitectura, spoke to an audience at the California College of the Arts about taking an “ethical and political stance” toward the built environment. Comunal’s practice, which is based on “participation as a pedagogy for social transformation,” rejects the notion that the tools learned in architecture school are the only valuable ones and elevates “complexity, participation, and strategic thinking” over simplified linear design processes. “Other worlds are possible,” said Amescua, and they can be achieved through collective thinking and action. Such was the case with a recent project, where a community in Tepetzintán, Mexico, followed a collective self-management process to build a rural school for expanded access to secondary education. Even though it facilitates such projects, Comunal does not want to be seen as the author of the resulting architectures but rather as one of the manifold entities—human, territorial, social, economic—that come together for a “mutual liberation” of the habitat.
— Anna Garcia Molina
3/18: What’s in a Pavilion?
CHICAGO — When former and current curators of the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale gathered at Pilsen’s Mana Contemporary last Saturday evening, it was no surprise what they discussed. Clevelanders TIZZIANA BALDENEBRO and LAUREN LEVING (of Spaces and MoCA Cleveland, respectively) presented the framing of their upcoming pavilion, Everlasting Plastics, which addresses a conspicuous lacuna in the area of architectural materiality. ANN LUI and IKER GIL, cocurators (with Mimi Zeiger) of the 2018 exhibition Dimensions of Citizenship, pondered how a pavilion can set the stage for impactful conversations. “In Venice, we present the ideal conversation that we want to have,” said Gil. Prompted by an audience question about translating talk into policy, Lui suggested that curators partner with allies to form networks that live on after the pavilion ends. If that happens, then “architects get to be part of a chorus of voices calling for change.”
— Mathew Hall
3/20: Design for the Collective
CHAMPAIGN, IL — JOYCE HWANG began her lecture at the Illinois School of Architecture with a couple of questions: “Why do we design buildings to exclude animals? Why are animals not a central part of our architecture?” Working through themes of ecology, activism, and co-authorship, Hwang, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo Department of Architecture, addressed the importance of designing for nonhuman inhabitants (for instance, bats) through a series of projects (for bat towers and “clouds”) focused on the integration of animal habitats in the built environment. Such small-scale interventions can foster biodiversity and ultimately subvert public perceptions about the animals with which we coexist, suggested Hwang. She wrapped up the night by urging students to find empathy with their future collaborators and clients, whether they may be human, creaturely, or otherwise.
— Shravan Arun
3/21: Confronting Carbon Form Exhibition Opening
ASTOR PLACE — On Wednesday evening, visitors crowded into Cooper Union’s notoriously unventilated Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery for the opening of Confronting Carbon Form. On one side of the hallway that led to the gallery was painted a sprawling timeline indicating the energetic history of the world; the entirety of the Detrital Fossil Carbon era was crammed into about two inches. The rest of the show—curated by ELISA ITURBE, STANLEY CHO, and ALICAN TAYLAN—was concerned both with the longue durée and those two inches. Curatorial formats were plentiful. There were physical models, such as those of modernist urban plans (Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse) and their antecedents (Barcelona’s Eixample). There were miniature scenes of the home, whose implements (a washing machine, furniture that someone said was procured from an actual dollhouse) are potent, if unassuming, emblems of carbon form. The juxtaposition was meant to be instructive, said Iturbe. “There is an intention on our part to resituate how we think about some of the climate discourse, or at least carve a new space for it.”
— Matthew Marani
NYRA GOES TO THE MOVIES
MIDTOWN — This weekend I went to my local art-house cinema—the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square—to take in a piercing piece of New York City architecture criticism. Vasilis Katsoupis’s Inside stars Willem Dafoe as an art thief trapped in a hermetically sealed, stupidly “smart” midtown luxury condominium that belongs to a Pritzker Prize–winning architect. The film is an attack on the architecture of isolation. When an alarm sounds, no one hears a peep—both because of its ostensibly security features (super-thick doors), and because these buildings are designed to be empty (there doesn’t seem to be anyone living in the unit directly below). The windows can’t open, even as the heat outside rises to over 100 degrees. “There is no creation without destruction,” goes a line at the film’s end. This may bring to mind the Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga, the historical economist Joseph Schumpeter or the antisemitic anarchist Mikhael Bakunin, but it should also call up the creative possibilities of destroying these machines for loneliness—whether by tearing them down or turning them into something the world needs more.
— Samuel Stein
IN THE NEWS
Our job listing got top billing in Archinect’s Job Highlights series: “An open role at The New York Review of Architecture could help propel your career in architectural writing.” That’s us! File your application at nyra.nyc/engage.
Oliver Wainwright dumped on Eric Owen Moss’s new (W)rapper tower in Los Angeles, and Twitter and Instagram went crazy.
Adam Nathaniel Furman begrudgingly joined TikTok.
Did you know that Iceland has fifty-six public restrooms for every hundred thousand people, while New York has only four? At least we are getting on top of strollers, where the MTA is expanding an open stroller area to over one thousand of its 5,700 buses across fifty-seven routes.
Kate Wagner is on a tear, ripping into house porn for Azure, weighing in on Donald Trump’s urban planning aspirations for Business Insider, and attacking gray interiors and windowless bedrooms for The Nation.
DATELINE
The week ahead is extremely busy…
Friday, 3/24
Mexico + H2O = Challenges, Reckonings, and Opportunities with Enrique Lomnitz, Mario Luna, Ismael Aguilar Barajas, Antonio Azuela, Gabriela Soto Laveaga, Elizabeth F.S. Roberts, Matthew Vitz, Manuel Perló, Luis Zambrano, Lorena Bello Gómez, América Lutz Ley, Rosario Sánchez, Christopher Scott, CJ Alvarez, Diane Davis, & Gabriela Soto Laveaga
9:00 AM EDT | Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Material Landscapes with Ateya Khorakiwala, Robin Schuldenfrei, Ingrid Halland, Peter Christensen, Zeynep Çelik Alexander, Andrew Herscher, Alison E. Isenberg, Dwight Carey, Mabel O. Wilson, Giuseppina Forte, Namita Dharia, Nida Rehman, Ijlal Muzaffar, & Sarah Lopez
9:30 AM EDT | Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Nondrivers Are Right: Why Those of Us Waiting for the Bus are Tomorrow's Transportation and Climate Leaders with Anna Zivarts
12:25 PM EDT | Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
Tempting Tools of the Trade with Tyler Swingle
12:00 PM CDT | University of Texas Austin School of Architecture
Why Public Space Matters: A Discussion of Placemaking Theory & Practice with Mike Lydon, Leslie Davol, Nando Rodriguez, & Setha Low
6:00 PM EDT | Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Timeless: Finding Kronos
6:30 PM EDT | Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture
Under Pressure: Essays on Urban Housing Book Launch with Hina Jamelle, Jerold B. Neuman, & Marcelo Spina
6:00 PM PDT | SCI-Arc
Saturday, 3/25
Architecture’s Ecological Restructuring: Workshop-Style Symposium with Rania Ghosn, Margarita Jover, Sylvia Lavin, Fadi Masoud, Antoine Picon, & Neyran Turan
1:00 PM EDT | Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture
A different kind of tender and the practice of overhealing Exhibition Opening with Katherine Simóne Reynolds
4:00 PM CDT | Graham Foundation
Monday, 3/27
TEN x TEN: Flows, Rushes, Slows with Ross Altheimer & Maura Rockcastle
12:30 PM CDT | University of Texas Austin School of Architecture
estudio Herreros with Juan Herreros
6:30 PM EDT | Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
New Ideas and Materials in Contemporary Furniture Design with Joyce Lin, Luam Melake, Hannah Martin, & Evan Snyderman
7:00 PM EDT | National Arts Club
Texas Is Urban with Jeannette Kuo, Jason Long, Brandie Lockett, & Stephen Mueller
6:00 PM CDT | Rice University School of Architecture
Wednesday, 3/29
Pet Plants Symposium
12:00 PM EDT | Syracuse University School of Architecture
Sir John Soane and Thomas Hope: Rival or Disciple? with Tim Knox
12:00 PM EDT | Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation
Artist Lecture with Jorge Pardo
5:00 PM CDT | University of Texas Austin School of Architecture
Lecture with Hamza Walker, Felicity D. Scott, & Mark Wasiuta
6:30 PM EDT | Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
Norma Merrick Sklarek Lecture with Sara Zewde, Elsa MH Mäki, & Karen Fairbanks
6:30 PM EDT | Barnard and Columbia Colleges Department of Architecture
Thursday 3/30
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 111th Annual Meeting with Sharon E. Sutton
2:00 PM CDT | Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Back to the Office: 50 Revolutionary Office Buildings and How They Sustained with Ashley Schafer, Ruth Baumeister, & Stephan Petermann
6:00 PM EDT | AIA New York | Center for Architecture
Biennial Lecture on Harvard’s Excavations at Sardis with Nicholas D. Cahill
6:30 PM EDT | National Arts Club
Erasing Invisibility with Sara Caples & Everardo Jefferson
6:30 PM EDT | Yale University School of Architecture
Emerging Voices 2023: ORU - Oficina de Resiliencia Urbana and TERREMOTO with Adriana Chávez, Victor Rico, Elena Tudela, David Godshall, Alain Peauroi, Jenny Jones, Story Wiggins, Fernanda Canales, & Zach Mortice
6:30 PM EDT | The Architectural League of New York
Friday 3/31
Finishing: The Ends of Architecture with Paul Emmons, Marcia Feuerstein, Negar Goljan, Billie Tsien, & David Leatherbarrow
12:00 AM EDT | Virginia Tech School of Architecture + Design
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 111th Annual Meeting
9:00 AM CDT | Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Unwalling Citizenship with Teddy Cruz & Fonna Forman
12:00 PM EDT | The New School Graduate Center for Design, Ethnography & Social Thought
A Bicycle Is Not an Ideology (And Neither Is a Building) with Kate Wagner
12:30 PM CDT | University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture
City Forum with Eric Tang
1:00 PM CDT | University of Texas Austin School of Architecture
Cocktails & Conversation: Nader Tehrani with Nima Javidi
6:30 PM EDT | AIA New York | Center for Architecture
Saturday, 4/1
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture 111th Annual Meeting with Francis Kéré
9:00 AM CDT | Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
Interior Provocations Symposium: Upkeep with Sally Stone
8:00 AM PDT | California College of the Arts Architecture Division & Pratt Institute School of Architecture
Order!: The Spatial Ideologies of Carbon Modernity
11:00 AM EDT | Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture
Interior Provocations: Upkeep with Sally Stone
9:00 AM PDT | California College of the Arts Architecture Division
Our listings are constantly being updated. Check the events page regularly for up-to-date listings and submit events through this link.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Reply to this e-mail to write us a letter! We’d love to hear your thoughts.
New York Review of Architecture is a team effort. Our editor is Samuel Medina. Our deputy editor is Marianela D’Aprile. Our editors-at-large are Carolyn Bailey, Phillip Denny, and Alex Klimoski, and our publisher is Nicolas Kemper.
To pitch us an article or ask us a question, write to us at: editor@nyra.nyc.
For their support, we would like to thank the Graham Foundation and our issue sponsors, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Thomas Phifer.
To support our contributors and receive NYRA by post, subscribe here.