Archinect - News

Mellon Foundation bestows $1.5 million to Storefront for Art and Architecture

2024-03-20T14:18:00-04:00

A new grant worth a total of $1.5 million has been awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. The 42-year-old space in Manhattan's Nolita district will use the funding to expand its programming over three years while supporting the organization's pursuit of new hires.

Speaking in a press release, Storefront's Chief Curator José Esparza Chong Cuy stated: "Storefront has been devoted to public life and to chronicling the changes in diverse built environments through critical artistic practice for over forty years, and this funding will enable us to expand its grassroots legacy by creating even more opportunities for engagement and collaboration on many scales."

Esparza Chong Cuy has been serving in the role since the departure of Eva Franch i Gilabert in October 2018.

Storefront has recently unveiled Swamplands, a three-artist exhibition and research series focused on the politics of water use and the Gulf of Mexico. The premiere exh...

José Esparza Chong Cuy to take over for Eva Franch i Gilabert as Executive Director and Chief Curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture

2018-10-04T13:08:00-04:00

José Esparza Chong Cuy has been appointed Executive Director and Chief Curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture. The Mexican architect, curator and writer will be taking over for Eva Franch i Gilabert, who was announced as the new director of the Architectural Association in London back in March.

Esparza Chong Cuy will assume the position beginning November 1st, 2018. He comes via the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), where he has served as the Pamela Alper Associate Curator since 2016. Prior to Chicago, his impressive CV includes stints at the Museo Jumex in Mexico, the Lisbon Architecture Triennial, the New Museum in New York, and some time spent at the Storefront as well as a Curatorial Associate.

"We are thrilled to welcome José to the helm of Storefront, the very institution where he began his curatorial career over a decade ago," remarked Charles Renfro, President of Storefront's Board of Directors.

"Through his background and experiences in Mexico, the US, and ...

Storefront of Art and Architecture in New York launches call for new Director

2018-04-11T16:18:00-04:00

Back in March, the Architectural Association in London announced Eva Franch i Gilabert would become the school's new Director after a competitive international search. Franch, who is the first woman to be elected director of the AA, is coming from the Storefront for Art & Architecture in New York, where she has served as Chief Curator and Executive Director for the past eight years.

Charles Renfro, President of Storefront's Board of Directors, said "Eva brought a level of energy and rigor to Storefront's programming that was unprecedented. While we are sad to see her go, we are thrilled that Storefront has been so instrumental in her nomination to head one of the most important architectural institutions in the world. We wish her the best of luck."

Franch will continue to head the independent art and architecture organization until June 2018. Today, the space has begun the search, launching a call for their new director. The process will be carried out by an internal search committe...

Constructive destruction: How would you imagine the ideal demolition scheme?

2016-02-19T14:36:00-05:00

'Preservation is good, but it doesn’t allow any opposing force,' says Bench. 'If you save a few beautiful buildings, it’s not as if the stuff that really should go then gets demolished. Instead, we end up putting the pressure on the buildings that are quite good, but not quite good enough to be deemed historical.'

Architects David Bench and Jonathan Chesley share the thought process behind their "Taking Buildings Down" competition proposal, which was one of the winning entries in the Storefront for Art and Architecture's Competition of Competitions in 2014.

"[R]ather than ask for new architectural developments, the pair wondered what kind of submissions they might receive if they called for architects to dream-up a demolition scheme?"

More recent news about demolition:

A final hurrah for L.A.'s Sixth Street Viaduct

"Stop the unpermitted demolition": Roche Dinkeloo's shiny UN Plaza Hotel lobby might be remodeled

"Too old to be hip but too young to be venerated" – say good-bye to the brutalist Fogarty building in downtown Providence

The winners of this year's Critical Halloween at the Storefront for Art and Architecture

2015-11-04T19:49:00-05:00

Each year, Critical Halloween celebrates a feared ghost of art and architectural production. This year, we explore DEMO, which operates simultaneously as an abbreviation, a prefix, a verb, and a noun. From acts of collective will (DEMOnstration) to institutional erasure (DEMOlition), DEMO invites guests to intellectually examine ideas, issues, and objects in art, architecture, and design with a focus on those that should get a dose of DEMO.

Critical Halloween, an annual event hosted by the Storefront for Art and Architecture, is a hybrid party, critical debate, and costume contest. Each year, the organizers announce a "spooky" architectural issue or concept, which is then interpreted by design aficionados and practitioners from around the city. Then an esteemed jury selects the winners of a series of theme-appropriate categories.

This year, the theme was "DEMO" – as in demonstration, but also demolition, demon, demos, democracy, demography, etc. The jury comprised Keller Easterling, author of Extrastatecraft and other notable titles, Winka Dubbeldam of Archi-Tectonics, Andres Jacque of the Office for Political Innovation, and Beatrice Galilee, the architecture and design curator at the Met.

The Storefront has also teamed up with the art website Hyperallergic to host a "Democratic People's Choice Award" and you can vote here.

So, without any further ado, the winners of the 2015 Critical Halloween costume contest...

Best Ove...

Editor's Picks #390

2014-10-23T11:56:00-04:00

Amelia profiles the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture aka ANFA and ponders the lessons from her time spent down in San Diego for ANFA’s annual three-day conference at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Does neuro-architecture truly hold the promise of translational design?

midlander dreams "I have a hard time seeing how this provides more meaningful feedback than occupant surveys...That said...I can't wait until I can wear some headset that makes revit models of whatever I'm thinking!" while Chris Teeter a regular advocate for the use of the "the old EEG headset" was pleased "great piece and like how you link all your news posts into a feature story..Although, much of what is going on now is data gathering, it is considerably more useful than just survey stats".

For a more speculative version of Deans List, Archinect spoke with Hernan Diaz Alonso, upcoming Director at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles.

News

"Archinect Sessions" a new weekly podcast hosted by Paul and Amelia, releas...

The boolean-created “Situation Room” at the Storefront for Art + Architecture

2014-10-15T19:44:00-04:00

Immersed in a neon bubblegum pink shell, walking through the Situation Room gives viewers a fascinating perspective of the digital and physical environments. Designed by MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY in collaboration with sound artist Jana Winderen, the installation was created by 20 spheres of various sizes fused by boolean operations. Storefront for Art and Architecture NYC commissioned the project for the WorldWide Storefront initiative launch.

Here's a sneak peek of the installation:

The 2014 U.S. Venice Biennale pavilion reinterprets 100 years of American architecture

2014-06-13T02:30:00-04:00

Styled after American corporate identity throughout the 20th century, our next featured 2014 Venice Biennale pavilion is "OfficeUS" representing the U.S. of A. Organized by NYC's Storefront for Art and Architecture in collaboration with PRAXIS Journal, the two-part exhibition will showcase and critically reinterpret the global influence of American architecture in the last century...For each week of the Biennale, OfficeUS will also address 25 issues relevant to its project archive.

Letters to mayors show what architects really think of cities

2014-05-22T13:26:00-04:00

City mayors across the world are about to take delivery of some searching, angry and occasionally very funny letters from leading international architects, academics and critics at the culmination of an exhibition curated by New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. “Letters to the Mayor” generated 50 fascinating and varied missives [...]. The project was conceived to remind politicians and the wider public – including architects themselves – of the political side of their profession.

Winners of the Competition of Competitions

2014-05-08T17:44:00-04:00

The winners were finally revealed for Storefront's Competition of Competitions, where entrants got to question the boundaries and shortcomings of competition brief formats by writing their very own. From the 18 finalists announced back in February, the jury picked 4 prize-winning projects, 7 honorable mentions, and a Storefront Special Prize.

All selected projects will be publicized and given support to reach the pertinent agents and authorities. The Storefront Special Prize winner will get to run their submitted competition as part of the 2014 Storefront for Art and Architecture program calendar.

Below are the winning competition briefs:

1ST PLACE WINNER - US$2,000: Deploy Yourself, Not Your Designs
By The Coalition for the Improvement of Refugee Camps (Marcy Monroe & Lee Dykxhoorn)
2ND PLACE WINNER - US$1,000: Labyrinth
By grey_matter(s) (Annie Charleston William McCommon Megan McDonough Shota Vashakmadze)
3RD PLACE JOINT WINNER - US$500: Amazonia 2020
By Civic Projects (Kati Rubinyi, Deborah Richmond , Michael Powell, Ewan E. Branda)
3RD PLACE JOINT WINNER - US$500: Open Source Open Space: Hacking the Built Environment
By Boot/Trunk (Nicole Lindahl, Louise Mackie and Samantha Senn)

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

The City is The Room. The Room is The City by FormFictionFormat [Elena Palacios Carral, Manijeh Verghese]
dePOLITIsign: An open ...

Finalists of Storefront’s Competition of Competitions

2014-02-08T11:23:00-05:00

Competition briefs for urban development can overlook the most pressing and relevant needs of local communities, and architects are usually limited to satisfying the brief's requirements in their proposals. As a response, Storefront set up the Competition of Competitions, where interdisciplinary teams got to ask the questions in creating their own competition briefs.

Eighteen finalists were chosen out of 100 submissions. The jury will then select 3 winners, 7 honorable mentions, and a Storefront Special Prize. The Special Prize will get to run their submitted competition as part of the 2014 Storefront for Art and Architecture program calendar.

The 18 finalists are:

TAKING BUILDINGS DOWN by IncA
THE DISCREET ARCHITECT by Local provision Studio
OPEN SOURCE OPEN SPACE, HACKING THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT by Boot Trunk
THE CITY by Form Fiction Format
NO TITLES by GroundLAB
NATURE, ERROR, BABIES by Metonymy's Architecture
DEPLOY YOURSELF, NOT YOUR DESIGNS by CIRCa
DEPOLITISIGN by Min Chen & Kristin Enright
AMAZONIA 2020 by Civic Projects .
THE NEXT SUBURB by The Thirteenth Hour
OFF-THE-RADAR: THE ARCHITECTURE OF NON-EXISITING SPACE by MITNICK-RODDIER
LABYRINTH COMPETITION by Gray_matter(s)
ARCHITECTURAL WORK by The Architecture Lobby
BLISS [BETTER LIVING THROUGH INTUITIVE SOFT SURVEILLANCE] by Yeadon Space Agency
FUTUR...

Regarding "Architecture and Capitalism" and Design as a Political Act

2013-11-12T13:06:00-05:00

When I said that all design is a political act, I meant it both as a statement and as a question to provoke further discussion. Why is it important to state such a seemingly obvious point? Because architecture is not often discussed that way, especially in academia or in practice. I often go to reviews where students and faculty only discuss the formal aspects of projects, ignoring all social and political conditions produced by or enabling the work. - Quilian Riano

Last week, Ross Wolfe attended Architecture and/or Capitalism an event hosted by Storefront for Art and Architecture's Architecture and posted a review over at Quaderns. Mr. Wolfe, was particularly taken aback by Quilian Riano's statement that "all architecture is political”. He also found the discussion wildly uneven and concluded "
What was more unsettling, in all probability, was the tacit recognition that the present impasse of architecture".

Editor's Picks #337

2013-10-14T23:46:00-04:00

Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, Editorial Manager for Archinect, traveled to Aedes Network Campus Berlin as a fly-on-the-wall, and reported back with 7 Lessons from the 3rd International Architectural Education Summit. These were; 1) The relevancy of the “Architect” is fleeting, 2) Kids today don’t know a thing about radicalism, 3) The powers that be are male, and architecture is a gender-divisive practice, 4) Architects need to be “strategically naive”, 5) Architectural authority is not above democratic authority (?), 6) Form before finances and lastly 7) The student has become the master (at least regarding computers).

In response Thayer-D opined "The main problem with architectural education isn't the lack of branding or radicalism, or even male dominated pedagogy (although that does suck). It's the lack of faith that tackling the myriad of issues associated with any given project will result in the most compelling and present project possible, regardless of one's aesthetic proclivi...

Recap: The New Museum’s Ideas City Festival By William Hanley

2013-05-10T03:02:00-04:00

At the Ideas City street fair: An installation made from discarded styrofoam by Terreform ONE rises in front of Raumlabor's Spacebuster, a mobile inflatable pavilion comissioned by the Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Davidson Rafailidis Wins 2013 IDEAS CITY StreetFest Competition

2013-04-25T14:46:00-04:00

The submission "MirrorMirror" by Buffalo-based architecture practice Davidson Rafailidis has been selected by Storefront for Art and Architecture and the New Museum as the winning entry of the 2013 IDEAS CITY StreetFest Tenting Competition.

Archizines launches tonight in NYC at Storefront for Art and Architecture

2012-04-17T17:54:00-04:00

The traveling Archizines exhibition will be opening in NYC tonight, at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. We're excited to have both the Archinect 'zine and Bracket [on farming] included in the exhibition. If you're in the area, make sure to come by!

Opening Reception: April 17, 2012, 7 PM - 9 PM

Archizines
April 18th-June 9th
Curated by Elias Redstone

Arch-Art! Books
May 5th-June 9thMay 5th-June 9th
Curated by Adam O'Reilly

A double exhibition with 80 magazines, 80 feet of books and other printed matters.

Archizines + Arch-Art! Books is a double exhibition consisting of Archizines curated by Elias Redstone (April 18 - June 9, 2012) and Arch-Art! Books, curated by Adam O'Reilly for Printed Matter, Inc. ( May 5 - June 9, 2012) that brings to the table a hypothesis: printed matter matters . Consisting of an ecle...