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Tadao Ando-designed Wrightwood 659 art venue to open in Chicago with exhibition on Ando and Le Corbusier

2018-09-28T14:36:00-04:00

Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood is getting an exciting new art place, and it's been designed by none other than Tadao Ando. Wrightwood 659 is a major transformation of a historic building from the 1920s and will be dedicated to exhibitions on architecture and on socially engaged art.

The place has an impressive lineup of exhibitions and other events, including the inaugural show Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture with more than 100 drawings, photographs, and models by Le Corbusier as well as 106 small models of his architectural works crafted by Tadao Ando's students. The show opens on October 12th and will run through December 15th.

A day before the opening, there's also a chance to see Tadao Ando discuss his work at the Art Institute of Chicago's annual Butler-Vanderlinden Lecture on Architecture, co-presented this year with Alphawood Foundation Chicago.

On November 8th and 9th, Wrightwood 659 will host the accompanying symposium Ando's Le Corb...

First glimpse: The seven “Dimensions of Citizenship” installations of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale

2018-03-13T19:09:00-04:00

Tackling the ever-complex question of what it means to be a citizen, the U.S. Pavilion exhibition “Dimensions of Citizenship” for the 2018 Venice Biennale will comprise of seven architectural installations that explore this loaded topic at seven different spatial scales. Today, the U.S. Pavilion team announced more details about the projects.

Last August, U.S. Pavilion curators Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, and Mimi Zeiger commissioned the seven architecture practices, including Studio Gang, SCAPE, Keller Easterling, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Ranging from the citizen to the cosmos, each installation explores how citizenship “may be defined, constructed, enacted, contested, or expressed in the built environment” at these different scales, and poses questions about issues related to belonging, sovereignty, and ecology.

Here's a preview of each installation:

Scale: Citizen / Amanda Williams + Andres L. Hernandez, in collaboration with Shani Crowe

“Braid study” (2017), Shani Crowe. From...

The films and videos that have been selected for the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale

2017-12-18T15:42:00-05:00

Back in August, Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, and Mimi Zeiger, were announced as the curators of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. Commissioned by the School of Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago and titled "Dimensions of Citizenship," the show will tackle the controversial question of what it means to be a citizen.

For the exhibit, the team has commissioned installations by seven participants: Amanda Williams & Andres L. Hernandez, Design Earth, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, Keller Easterling, SCAPE, and Studio Gang. Alongside these, a series of film and video works will also be displayed that explore multiple perspectives and reflections on the spatial conditions of citizenship.

Entitled “Transit Screening Lounge,” the collection features recent single-channel works and "will offer more ambiguous readings of contemporary citizenship, involving blurred boundaries, gray areas, and alternative histories. The sele...

DS+R, Studio Gang, Keller Easterling among exhibitors selected for the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale

2017-09-12T21:03:00-04:00

The U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, titled Dimensions of Citizenship, is further taking shape: the curatorial team — announced just two weeks ago and comprised of Mimi Zeiger, Niall Atkinson, and Ann Lui — today revealed a line-up of the seven pavilion exhibitors:

Amanda Williams & Andres L. Hernandez
Chicago, IL

PXSTL: Williams and Hernandez won the 2016 design-build competition. Image courtesy of Michael B. Thomas / Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Design Earth
Cambridge, MA

Pacific Aquarium. Oslo Architecture Triennale, After Belonging, 2016. Project Team: El Hadi Jazairy + Rania Ghosn. Reid Fellenbaum, Ya Suo, Jia Weng, Shuya Xu, Saswati Das, with initial contributions from Rixt Woudstra. Image courtesy of DESIGN EARTH

Diller Scofidio + Renfro
New York, NY

The Shed, View from 30th Street looking northwest, Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group. Image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group

Estudio Teddy Cruz...

Dimensions of Citizenship: Curators of the US Pavilion for 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale announced

2017-08-30T21:33:00-04:00

Months later than usual, the US State Department Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs has finally announced that the exhibit for the 2018 Venice Biennial will be put together by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. Titled “Dimensions of Citizenship”, and organized by UC's Niall Atkinson, SAIC's Ann Lui and the Los Angeles-based independent critic Mimi Zeiger, the show will tackle the controversial question of what it means to be a citizen.

The pavilion will present both—newly commissioned projects created in response to the subject and already existing work, featuring entries from theorists, historians, and artists in addition to architects and designers. Commenting on the choice of the theme, Lui noted, “We thought that citizenship was a very urgent topic right now, both within national and global conversations. We noticed that architecture was often squarely in the center of these conversations, whether it was the border wall, or about mor...