Erieta Attali’s photographic projects develop over long committed years and through many, many images. Yet for this, her second exhibition at the Byzantine Museum, she has distilled the profound dialogue she entertains with architecture into a selection of fifteen photographs. These are images of layered perceptions that capture the very essence of her approach to architecture and photography as complementary experiences of shifting opticality.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize has appointed Deborah Berke and Barry Bergdoll as the newest members of the prize jury. Replacing Richard Rogers and Ratan N. Tata, the new appointments of Berke and Bergdoll mark the upcoming 2020 edition of the Pritzker Prize and the 42nd anniversary of the accolade. The Pritzker Prize is internationally known as architecture's highest honor.
Kanye West is, according to Kanye West, a reformed man. After months of making headlines over his bizarre political views, he stated on Wednesday that, “my eyes are now wide open and now realize I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in. I am distancing myself from politics and completely focusing on being creative !!!”
While this most likely means a return to his music career, this statement could also indicate a renewed interest in his design projects. The rapper’s interest in architecture is more than just a passing one; he’s collaborated with noted architects such as Jacques Herzog and Rem Koolhaas and has declared on multiple occasions his desire for everything to be “architected.”
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This article was originally published in Metropolis Magazine as "Hip-Hop Architecture's Philip Johnson Moment".
More than 40 years after it emerged from South Bronx house parties, hip-hop has become a once-in-a-lifetime concussive force reshaping global cultural. But at its most elemental and foundational, hip-hop is a direct, powerful confrontation with the built environment. “Broken glass everywhere / People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five rapped on their seminal 1982 track “The Message.” “I can’t take the smell, can’t take the noise / Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice.”
On display until July 19th, MoMA's exhibition "Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980" is an attempt to bring the architecture of this global region, and this time period, to a greater audience after decades of neglect by the architectural establishment. Curated by Barry Bergdoll, the exhibition effectively follows on from MoMA's last engagement with the topic of Latin American architecture, way back in 1955 with Henry-Russell Hitchcock's exhibition "Latin American Architecture Since 1945." In an intriguing interview, Bergdoll sits down with Metropolis Magazine to talk about why he is revisiting the topic after so many years (or, indeed, why MoMA took so long to do so), and explains his ambitions to elevate the featured works and to frame Latin America itself as "not simply as a place where the pupils of Le Corbusier went to build, but a place of origins of ideas." Read the full interview here.
On Wednesday, November 5, Diana Balmori will visit the Strand to chat about Drawing and Reinventing Landscape with the MoMA's architecture curator, Barry Bergdoll. Diana's book examines digital, analog and hybrid methods of representing landscape and places the contemporary landscape architecture within its fascinating historical context. This exclusive Strand chat will investigate crucial aspects of the design process. Join as these two experts discuss this important design topic at a moment of increasing global environmental change. More information here.
Yesterday we asked some prominent critics and a few of Ban's peers to weigh in on the Japanese architect's Pritzker win. Curators, architects, and writers praised Ban's approach and conviction, describing what Ban's work signifies to the architecture community. Read on for comments from Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair, MoMA curators Barry Bergdoll and Pedro Gadanho, Cooper Union classmates Nanako Umemoto and Jesse Reiser, of Reiser + Umemototo, and more.
"We are very proud of Shigeru as the first Pritzker Prize Winner to have graduated from Cooper Union. Shigeru continues to embody the independent thinking that was highly emphasized through our education. We met Shigeru in 1979, and can speak to his dedication to humanity from the beginning. As we recall, each design problem for Shigeru became an occasion to explore the work of what he considered to be the master architects as a way of developing his own voice. It has become fashionable to connect architecture to social causes; however, Shigeru has never seen it as a trend, but rather something fundamental to his design practice. Unlike those in the discipline who conflate their social and political commitments with architecture, he happens to be a very fine architect. As a result of his education abroad and his inclination to define a unique practice, Shigeru has always been viewed as an independent within the Japanese scene. We are very excited that Shigeru's work is being honored."
- Nanako Umemoto and Jesse Reiser
Founders of Reiser + Umemototo, RUR Architecture PC
Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at New York's Museum of Modern Art and professor of modern architectural history at Columbia University, will present the 62nd A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts Series. The Mellons are among the most prestigious art history lecture series in the world and have been delivered annually since 1952 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. For this year's series, Bergdoll will present "Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture since 1750."
More about the lecture series after the break...