This article was originally published on Common Edge.
Architecture mirrors the culture it is built from, while simultaneously aspiring to lead that culture. This is almost oxymoronic, since reflecting and projecting our values is an essential part of every human life, and architecture is exquisitely human. Our buildings embody us, with all of our mixed messages.
Yale University’s School of Architecture was in the midst of pedagogical upheaval when Louis Kahn joined the faculty in 1947. With skyscraper architect George Howe as dean and modernists like Kahn, Philip Johnson, and Josef Albers as lecturers, the post-war years at Yale trended away from the school’s Beaux-Arts lineage towards the avant-garde. And so, when the consolidation of the university’s art, architecture, and art history departments in 1950 demanded a new building, a modernist structure was the natural choice to concretize an instructional and stylistic departure from historicism.[1] Completed in 1953, Louis Kahn’s Yale University Art Gallery building would provide flexible gallery, classroom, and office space for the changing school; at the same time, Kahn’s first significant commission signaled a breakthrough in his own architectural career—a career now among the most celebrated of the second half of the twentieth century.
Cloistered by a protective shell of stone, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is one of the world’s foremost collections of rare manuscripts. Opened in 1963, the library is renowned for its translucent marble façade and the world-renowned glass book tower sheltered within – a dramatic arrangement resulting from the particular requirements of a repository for literary artifacts. This unique design, very much in the Modernist lineage but in contrast to the revivalist styles of the rest of Yale’s campus, has only become appreciated thanks to the passage of time; the same bold choices which are now celebrated were once seen as a cause for contempt and outrage.
Our friends at Arbuckle Industries has shared this short clip that takes you inside Foster + Partners' Yale School of Management. Completed earlier this year, the new school unites Yale’s faculty departments at the Edward P. Evans Hall with world-class teaching facilities and collaborative social spaces. This, as the architects described, brings a new level of transparency to education, abandoning traditionally closed-off courtyard buildings for an open design that embraces the campus community. More stunning images and information on the project can be found here.
Designed and constructed by QASTIC Lab, ‘Balance Through Buoyancy’ is a temporary researchpavilion called “Floatastic” which was designed and built for a private client to serve as a shade pavilion for a wedding ceremony. Situated in Edgerton Park, in New Haven Connecticut (an Olmsted planned landscape), this deployable structure aims to create a floated shelter which avoids imposing any loads to the ground, which traditional structures require. Instead, it proposes a well-fabricated balloon, which is filled with Helium to raise the imposed loads of fabric veils and any possible dynamic environmental loads toward the sky. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Opening February 14, and on view until May 4, Yale School of Architecture‘s ‘White Cube, Green Maze: New Art Landscapes’ exhibition will examine emerging trends in museum design through six new art sites that share the common thread of moving beyond the traditional “white cube” gallery space, and that juxtapose the experience of culture, art, architecture, and landscape. Featuring newly commissioned photography of these sites by Iwan Baan, each site represents a unique expression of the ambitions and collaborations of patrons, architects, landscape architects, artists, and curators. For more information, please visit here.
In an effort to explore the auditory dimension of architecture, Yale School of Architecture is presenting the J. Irwin Miller Symposium: ‘The Sound of Architecture’ which will take place October 4-6. Free and open to the public, the symposium will draw on experts from a variety of disciplines in its quest for an understanding of architecture as an auditory environment. The three-day event will begin with remarks by Professor Forster, who will present key examples of relevant historical issues as well as of buildings with characteristic sonic properties. This will be followed by a lecture by architect Brigitte Shim (Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto), who will describe the architectural calibration of a house designed for a mathematician and amateur musician. Friday will encompass four sessions, which will address the phenomenology of listening, and there will be two sessions on Saturday, one on the soundscapes of cities and the politics of urban noise and another examining the affect of sound on the aesthetic and social character of space. To register and for more information, please visit here.
As we all know, natural disasters continue to kill hundreds of thousands each year, and the vast growth of cities with unsafe and unreliable buildings and other infrastructure will only increase the cost of human life and negatively impact local economies. To address this, The Campaign for Safe Buildings, along with The Rubin Foundation and the Yale School of Architecture, is hosting a symposium November 4th and 5th to look closely at safe building initiatives around the world and many of the challenges that stand in the way of keeping natural disasters from turning into man-made catastrophes. More information on the event after the break.
Taking place at the Yale School of Architecture gallery from November 14th-January 27th is the Gwathmey Siegel: Inspiration and Transformation Exhibition which is the first museum exhibition devoted to the work of Gwathmey Siegel and Associates Architects, one of the most influential architecture firms of the modern period. The exhibition is free and open to the public. More information on the event after the break.
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