Hello NYRA Readers,
I'm Fernanda, an architect from Sao Paulo with an unstable visa status currently quarantining in New York City. Today is October 26th. We are now only nine days out from election day. I’m happy to be writing this week’s Pitch Sheet partly because it is a welcomed distraction from election anxiety. I hope the list below might engage your mind on other pressing and prescient topics and events—at least for a moment.
And I must say, please vote. I know myself and many others wish they could.
As we reach the end of October (or for many of us, Archtober), we are blessed with a ton of good events. Let’s collectively try to hold back our FOMO as we go through the list together…
House Business: Issue 15
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(Online) Exhibitions
The Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at Columbia GSAPP is reinventing itself in A Wildness Distant, a beautifully designed online program that explores landscape as a site of political imagination. Until November 1st, the gallery is screening the film Alpi (2011) by Armin Linke and the essay “Of Mountains and Machines” by Shannon Mattern. After diving into the material, if you have a chance, subscribe to their fresh new Instagram account (@arthurross_archgallery).
Another online exhibition, Women Take the Lead, by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), presents an array of cultural landscapes in the U.S. designed or co-designed by women. The content combines a report on threatened landscapes with a retrospective of women in landscape architecture, and assesses the role of women in the profession today. Not yet convinced? The exhibition holds archival material on Ruth Shellhorn planning Disneyland with Walt Disney himself.
Articles
During the course of the pandemic, there has been much speculation about the future of museums, and how we will continue to interact with art. One of this week's many events, The Future of Cultural Centers at AIA New York, brings Miranda Massie, director of The Climate Museum, to discuss new missions, visions, and (spatial) programs for cultural institutions. On that note, Bruce Nauman's new work, “Nature Morte,” 2020, which now on view at the Sperone Westwater Gallery, touches upon many of those issues on a literal touchscreen. Tanya Mohn recently reviewed the show for The New York Times in An iPad Studio Tour Finds Bruce Nauman Pushing Limits, pressing into current concerns with very satisfying video demonstrations.
On October 20th, The Guardian published an interview with architect Lesley Lokko, who recently resigned from her position as dean of the Spitzer School of Architecture. The piece, 'Race is never far from the surface': Lesley Lokko on quitting New York surprised me. A few months ago, I spent some time at the Spitzer's archive researching the school’s former dean J. Max Bond Jr., the first black architect to head both the Spitzer and Columbia GSAPP. So while the Spitzer has historically represented a progressive arena for discussions around race and gender (check out its fall lecture series Far South), Lokko’s resignation raises critical questions about this narrative. Her act, in turn, encourages us to partake in a long-awaited reckoning while working towards other possibilities for our discipline.
Events!
10/26 Monday
Lecture by L.E.FT Architects (Ziad Jamaleddine And Makram El Kadi) Response by Amale Andraos
6:00pm | GSAPP | Free
10/27 Tuesday
The Future of Cultural Centers: Miranda Massie, The Climate Museum
12:00pm | AIA New York | General Public: $10, Students: Free
Ancient Wisdom | Modern Practice
12:00pm | Parsons School Of Design | Free
Making Space For Social Justice? A Practitioner Panel On Philanthropy And The City. Lecture By Clarisa Bencomo, Don Chen, George Mccarthy, And Maria Torres-springer
1:00pm | GSAPP | Free
Biofabrication: Growing The Future
4:00pm | Parsons School Of Design
14th Annual Arthur Rosenblatt Memorial Lecture: Elizabeth Diller
6:00pm | AIA New York | General Public: $10, Students: Free
Entanglements | Irene Cheng + Richard Sommer: Monuments Rise / Monuments Fall
6:30pm | The Cooper Union | Free
10/28 Wednesday
Climate Mobilization Act Series: Raising the Bar for Affordable Housing
9:00am | Building Energy Exchange | Free
In Memory of: Designing Contemporary Memorials Featuring sir David Adjaye, Michael Bierut and Spencer Bailey
1:00pm | Phaidon
Eileen Gray Virtual Guided Tours
2:00pm | Bard Graduate Center | Pay What You Wish
The Legacy Project: Oral History Workshop in The Age of Covid-19
6:00pm | Weeksville Heritage Center | Free
10/29 Thursday
Lessons From Rwanda with Patricie Uwase
9:30am | UC Berkeley College Of Environmental Design | Free
Power After the Pandemic: Transportation Equity
12:00am | Urban Design Forum
WAST(ED): Living with Trash
2:00pm | AIA New York and Pratt | $10 (General Public); Free (Students)
Virtual Plaque Unveiling: The Home Of Jane Jacobs, 555 Hudson Street
6:00pm | Village Preservation
Enhancing Democracy: The Power of Design in Voting Spaces
6:00pm | AIA New York | $10 (General Public), Free (Students)
Everyday Ecologies: Kate Orff, Elizabeth Hénaff, Andrea Parker, Erika Svendsen
6:00pm | The Spitzer School Of Architecture | Free
Paths To Prison: On The Architectures Of Carcerality
6:30pm | GSAPP | Free
ALEX BERTMAN & ARTEMIS PAPADATOU
7:00pm | Dinner with Designers | $15
Still from Alpi (2011) by Armin Linke on view at the new virtual spot of Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery.
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To see the complete list of events, go to nyra.nyc/events.
If you would would like to write up an event for us - do it! See an example writeup here. Most write ups are incorporated into the column ‘SKYLINE,’ some become larger articles. All correspondents receive $30 and their name in the paper. Ask to cover an event: editor@nyra.nyc.
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