Archinect - News

Dora Epstein Jones, former A+D Museum Director, joins UT Austin School of Architecture faculty

2023-08-14T11:37:00-04:00

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture has announced Dora Epstein Jones will be joining its faculty in the fall as one of five new appointments.

Previously, Jones served as former faculty at Texas Tech University at Huckabee College of Architecture in Lubbock and will be coming to campus as the school’s newest Professor of Practice. She had previously been employed as the executive director of Los Angeles’ A+D Architecture and Design Museum prior to her tenure at Texas Tech, where she was instrumental in steering the development of a new research praxis for faculty that “forge[d] stronger interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture, philosophy, and history.”

Beyond her academic career, which began in 2002 at SCI-Arc, Epstein has also previously served as a principal of the Los Angeles-based studio Jones, Partners: Architecture, and holds a Ph.D. in Architectural History, Theory, and Criticism from UCLA in addition to her M.A. in Urban Planning, which she a...

Natasha Sandmeier named new Executive Director of Los Angeles’ A+D Museum

2022-08-09T12:35:00-04:00

UCLA Architecture and Urban Design adjunct Natasha Sandmeier has been named as the next Executive Director of the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles (A+D), the institution announced on Monday.

In her new role, Sandmeier will work to “advance the next generation of museum programming and community building.” She has been serving in the position since June and replaces Anthony Morey, who stepped down in early 2021.

The A+D Museum is going through a transition from its longtime brick-and-mortar location downtown to a post-Covid virtual programming format for the time being. A press release mentioned Sandmeier is working closely with its Board and Managing Director Camille Elston on the search for a new physical home. For now, she is helping to maintain the A+D’s calendar of slated exhibitions for the rest of the year.

Sandmeier has taught at UCLA since 2019. She had previously worked as a proje...

A closer look at the state of LA's student-led architecture school publications

2019-10-09T12:33:00-04:00

Please join us for a panel discussion on the role of student publications in architecture school.

What is the role of student-led publications?

In an era when digital rules, what’s the value of continuing the tradition of print?

How do student-led publications function, from concept, to editorial-production, to distribution?

We hope to answer these questions, and more, with a panel of representatives from UCLA, SCI-Arc, USC, and Cal Poly Metro...

UCLA: Rayne Laborde & David Vasquez (POOL)

SCI-Arc: Marcelyn Gow (Offramp); Richard Mapes, Corie Yaguchi, Irvin Shaifa (Underscore)

USC: Alvin Huang (Supertall)

Cal Poly L.A. Metro Program: Stephen Phillips (L.A. [TEN])

The panel will be moderated by Archinect’s Paul Petrunia and will take place at the A+D Museum on Saturday, October 19th, at 5pm. The event is part of Archinect’s event programming during The Los Angeles Schools exhibition, running at the A+D until November 24th.

A deeper look at the institutions behind The Los Angeles Schools exhibition

2019-09-21T11:00:00-04:00

Los Angeles has long been a cradle for innovative architectural thinking. As a result, the Los Angeles area is not only filled with many architecturally significant sites, but is also home to some of the world's leading architectural institutions. This weekend, four of the region's schools of architecture will be participating in the Architecture and Design (A+D) museum's The Los Angeles Schools exhibition, a showcase of institutional pedagogies and the student work those ideas generate.

The exhibition aims to showcase Los Angeles's position as a pivotal node for architectural research, production, and exploration both in United States and internationally, as well.

Archinect has compiled statistics on the four participating schools and their respective academic programs to highlight the important role each plays in bolstering the region's reputation as a design-forward metropolis.

(Editors note: A range of regional schools of architecture were asked to participate in the exhibiti...

The Assembly returns to LA's A+D Museum next week

2019-08-28T14:09:00-04:00

The assembly returns this fall at A+D on September 7, 2019 from 7:00-10:30pm. The recurring event is an unveiling of A+D’s new rotation of exhibitions. This approach to hosting simultaneous exhibition openings is an expression of our mission to join together a diverse community in celebration of different disciplines of design and points of view. Join us on September 7th in celebration of four new exhibitions opening with beer, candy, and music.

The fall 2019 assembly opens four exhibits. This assembly will welcome 000 Magazine into the museum with Proof & Prototype in The Alcove Gallery. Proof & Prototype highlights the meticulous work it takes to create a quarterly publication focused on serving the reader above all else, through an expansive case study of 000 Magazine. This exhibition runs through 11.24.19.

The A+D’s newest exhibition space, The Portal, will be home to Virtual Bauhaus, an exhibition on the German school of art and design using the medium of virtual realit...

Vaults, Models & Objects; Assembly returns to A+D Museum

2019-02-19T11:06:00-05:00

Saturday, March 2, 2019 from 6:30-10pm the A+D Museum will unveil its next rotation of The Assembly. The Assembly is the museum's new tradition; it is a gathering. This approach to exhibition openings is an expression of the museum's mission to join together a diverse group in celebration of different disciplines of design and points of view. In this outing the museum will be celebrating 4 new exhibits being opened to the public.

The main Gallery will feature Translucent Vaults, the A+D Museum’s exploration of digital access to cultural institutions and art. The exhibition, curated by the A+D, serves to ask what issues, benefits, and possible futures arise with the shift from physical to digital access.

This marks the second outing of Rios Clementi Hale’s Alley Fellowship, a partnership with A+D Museum which aims to support cross-disciplinary emerging artists. Sarah Jones, this round’s Alley Fellow, presents Tangle, an immersive simultaneously lush and ordered environment where yo...

2019 Guest Curators at A+D Museum Announced

2019-01-09T18:48:00-05:00

What is the role of curation in today’s architecture & design disciplinary framework? The guest curator program aims to produce a conversation through making & curating that begins to analyze traditional modes and models of curating architecture & design.

The Guest Curator Program was motivated by the A+D’s desire to provide an opportunity for emerging voices to collaborate, create, and experiment alongside the museum’s chief curator on contemporary modes of curation, media, and untapped mediums. The Program is an evolving body of professionals and academics from different backgrounds gathered in the effort to initiate conversations on how to expand upon and rupture traditional modes of curating architecture and design.

With this particular rotation, the museum is thrilled to focus on new media and modes of expression and how they may intersect with classic curatorial techniques, and emerging themes in design, architecture, and consumption. The 2019 guest curators are Alessio Granci...

Assembly returns at A+D Museum

2018-08-22T13:34:00-04:00

Saturday, September 8, 2018 from 6:30-10pm the A+D Museum will unveil its second out of The Assembly. The Assembly is a new tradition; it is a gathering. This approach to exhibition openings is an expression of the museum's mission to join together a diverse group in celebration of different disciplines of design and points of view. In this outing the museum will be celebrating 5 new exhibits being opened to the public.

Wireframes: The Visualization of Architecture

Wireframes. Branding and Image via Kilograph.

Wireframes is the first exhibit to track the art of architectural visualization since its inception. The exhibit presents a series of narratives, snapshots from the discipline's vibrant history. Through illustrations, projections, and interactive technologies the visitor is immersed in the story of architectural visualization. With over 30 artists participating, Wireframes exhibits the infinite possibilities for creative visual communication. Artists include Kilograph, Hayes Da...

A+D Museum presents 'The Assembly'

2018-06-26T13:01:00-04:00

This Saturday, June 30, 2018 from 6:30-10pm the A+D Museum will unveil The Assembly. The Assembly is a new tradition; it is a gathering. This approach to exhibition openings is an expression of the museum's mission to join together a diverse group in celebration of different disciplines of design and points of view.

The inaugural event opens five exhibits open for the summer season. The Room gallery houses Cycle & Pattern, a fashion exhibition in collaboration with Otis College. A+D premiers its first outing with GCP, the museum’s curatorial lab, in The Alcove gallery with 3-Ways, a projection-based show exploring themes of scale and communication. Sunset 2050, in The Alley gallery, is a breathtaking retrospective and futuristic interpretation of Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles with UCLA. Doppelgängers, in The Lane gallery, offers a view into the architectural mind of Patrick Tighe Architecture. The Island features Back to Front, an outdoor installation by StereoBot & Oasys taking on the...

A+D Museum & RCHS announce The Alley Fellowship

2018-04-18T17:12:00-04:00

The A+D Museum has announced the unveiling of their inaugural fellowship program, developed in collaboration with the LA-based multi-disciplinary design firm, Rios Clementi Hale Studios.

The aim of the The Alley Fellowship is to produce a two-month rotating exhibition and lecture series and is open to emerging, young, progressive artists in Los Angeles. The fellowship will be awarded to six artists, selected by a seven-member jury consisting of artists, designers, and architects from the A+D Museum and Rios Clementi Hale Studios. The jury will select based on which projects best embody the spirit of transdisciplinary creative exploration, a key focus area for RCHS and A+D.

A+D Museum

“A fundamental aspect of the A+D’s mission is to produce a platform for analysis, exploration, and for the ever-expanding perspectives of our field regardless of their historical arenas. The Alley Fellowship is a direct expression of this mission, it explores the means and modes of contemporary inquiry a...

A+D Museum launches Guest Curator Program

2018-03-28T09:00:00-04:00

The diversity and trajectories of architecture and design are at an all-time high and as important as ever, if not more and the role of the museum - our museum - is to produce a platform to present and promote progressive architecture and design equal to the rigor, enthusiasm, and diversity that exists within the culture we represent.

Embracing its refreshed direction and trajectory, The A+D Museum is proud to announce the launch of the Guest Curator Program. The program is a year-long experiment for testing and understanding traditional modes, models, and means to architectural and design curation.

The program invites five guest curators to work alongside the A+D to tackle all aspects of the manner in which museums and the dissemination of knowledge are addressed. The direct output of the program is not defined but is instead understood as a collection of tangents into publications, public events, conversations and curatorial adventures — if not to say; it is a mere melting pot for creative cultural endeavors. Working with today's mediums, questions, and inquiries, the program will look to set the groundwork for architecture and design's curatorial practices of tomorrow by understanding their limits today.

In a statement by the A+D, "Exhibitions, curation and experimentation through making at large are one of ...

Anthony Morey named Executive Director and Curator at Los Angeles' a+d museum

2018-02-07T18:44:00-05:00

Anthony Morey, who many here on Archinect will recognize as Archinect's editor-at-large, starting editorial columns such as Cross-Talk, Fellow Fellows and From the Ground Up, has been just announced as the a+d museum's new Executive Director and Curator.

Prior to this announcement, Anthony served as the Assistant Director & Curator under the direction of Dora Epstein Jones. In addition to his roles at the a+d and Archinect, Anthony is a discussion moderator at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Design Studio Faculty at USC in Los Angeles. His work and research focus on the tensions between text, psychology and image and their relationship to architecture and design.

Come Fail With Us

2017-11-21T18:56:00-05:00

The museum showcases failures to provide visitors a learning experience about the important role of failure for innovation and to encourage organizations to become better at learning from failure.

This December, corporate flops will be showcased when the Museum of Failure comes to Los Angeles. Don’t let the name fool you. The Museum of Failure is a celebration of history’s failed products and services and the lessons learned from them.

Exhibited at the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in the Los Angeles Arts District, the Museum of Failure welcomes visitors to enjoy an experiential journey of failures-past beginning December 1 through February 4, 2018.

welcomes visitors to enjoy an experiential journey of failures

The Museum of Failure will treat its visitors to a shrine of history’s epic fails by some of the world’s best known companies. Marketing catastrophe that was Bic for Her? Yup. The two-wheeled, self-balancing transport innovation, Segway? Better believe it. These, along with artifacts spanning from the 17th century right up to the present day, including the frozen beef lasagna by Colgate, demonstrate the types of failures the museum will showcase.

Image: Museum of...

Reimagining Detroit: A+D Museum’s The Architectural Imagination

2017-10-09T23:43:00-04:00

Architecture is a creative media that analyzes what is, while imagining what could and should be. Located in Los Angeles’ Art District, A+D Museum's current exhibit, The Architectural Imagination, is a showcase of re-imagining and rebuilding the outdated industrial urbanscape of Detroit, Michigan. Before coming to Los Angeles, the exhibition premiered during the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.

During the mid-20th century, Detroit was a booming urban center bursting with blue collar and white collar families benefiting from the automotive industry. However, as automotive industries began to move their factories to cheaper markets and with the rather recent American automotive bankruptcies and government bailouts, Detroit has been challenged with repurposing the remnants of an abandoned era. The projects showcased in the exhibit present ideas for compelling modern design along with appropriate programming (think atriums, markets, and green spaces) to regenerate existing neighborh...

Museum at the front line: One-to-One #33 with Dora Epstein Jones, executive director of the A+D Museum

2016-08-08T14:48:00-04:00

Dora Epstein Jones is the newly minted executive director of the A+D Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles. With a doctorate in Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from UCLA, Epstein Jones came to A+D after nearly 15 years at SCI-Arc, where she led the coordination of humanities and theory courses, and served as the founding coordinator of the General Studies program.

Now situated in L.A.’s booming Arts District, A+D is neighbor to downtown’s own museum renaissance, not to mention the SCI-Arc campus. In our interview, Epstein Jones imagines how A+D could become the L.A version of Storefront, while working to keep it accessible to the local community.

Listen to One-to-One #33 with Dora Epstein Jones:

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A+D Museum appoints Dora Epstein Jones as new Executive Director

2016-06-30T17:34:00-04:00

A little over one year since relocating to Downtown LA's Arts District, big changes continue to occur at the A+D Museum. Yesterday, the Museum announced Dora Epstein Jones as their new Executive Director, succeeding Tibbie Dunbar, who officially resigned from the position on February 1. Dunbar served as director for a nearly 12-year tenure that included notable exhibitions like “Never Built: Los Angeles”.

As only the A+D's second executive director, Epstein Jones will work to carry out the Museum's mission of being “locally focused and globally relevant”. Before joining the A+D, she served as Coordinator of History and Theory and then Coordinator of General Studies at SCI-Arc for 15 years. Widely known as a generous supporter of architects and designers, Epstein Jones has several written publications, lectures, symposia, and exhibitions all dedicated to “the public display of architecture and design across a spectrum of concerns, from aesthetic to social.” She also received a Ph.D. ...

Bonus Session: Reflections on "Shelter" in Los Angeles

2015-11-20T14:49:00-05:00

We're pleased to announce a special bonus episode of Archinect Sessions, featuring a live recording of the closing panel discussion for "Shelter" at the Architecture + Design Museum in Los Angeles.

To close out the exhibition on November 6, curators Sam Lubell and Danielle Rago hosted two panel discussions with the featured architects, focusing on the sites that serve as the exhibition's organizing principles: the Metro subway extension in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the stretch of the LA River running through the city proper. Both sites embody much of what is affecting Los Angeles' changing urbanism – ongoing drought, invigorated public transportation, gentrification, and increasing density.

Mimi Zeiger, West Coast Editor of The Architect's Newspaper moderated the panel on the River, with Jimenez Lai (Bureau Spectacular), Elizabeth Timme (LA-Más), and Lorcan O'Herlihy (Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects), and I moderated the panel on Metro, with Jennifer Marmon (PAR...

Susan S. Szenasy on the Importance of Design in the Everyday

2015-04-27T19:19:00-04:00

Inside the soon-to-be-demolished A+D Museum in Los Angeles, a small group gathered last week for a conversation with Susan S. Szenasy, the Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis Magazine, followed by a signing of her new book of collected writings, Szenasy, Design Advocate. The talk is likely the last the museum will host in its Miracle Mile location, as the museum prepares to move to a new home in the Downtown Arts District following the expropriation of the current building to make room for an extension of the Metro Red Line. Moderated by architecture writer and curator Greg Goldin (whose previous “Never Built: Los Angeles” exhibition was on show at the A+D in 2013), the conversation focused on the personal relationships we have with design in everyday life.

“I was always railing against the idea that people were never talked about in architecture,” Szenasy recalled of her formative years at Interior magazine. “Designers reflect us back to ourselves,” she added a bit later. “They have a hug...

Downtown LA's vision of an architecture and design super cluster

2015-04-22T14:23:00-04:00

When the Architecture + Design Museum announced their impending move to the Arts District late last year, their short-term (two-year) lease had some wondering what was in the cards for the museum's future. [...]after their lease is up, the A+D Museum is hoping to move again—into a new building that will house it, the American Institute of Architects' Los Angeles chapter (AIA/LA), and the much-anticipated Center for Architecture and Urban Design Los Angeles (CALA), a non-profit "design commons."

MAD founder Ma Yansong celebrates opening of LA office with lecture in Hollywood

2014-04-11T15:43:00-04:00

Co-presented by Hennessey + Ingalls, the A+D Museum and the Cal Poly LA Metro Program, Ma Yansong lectured last night on MAD's history and the trials of Chinese architecture. Now with offices in Los Angeles and Beijing, MAD is poised to fulfill the high expectations bestowed on it as a Chinese firm cultivating a style unique from any western exceptionalism, while also building outside of Asia. Yansong's talk took place at Space 15 Twenty in Hollywood -- a public, outdoor courtyard surrounded by hip storefronts and eateries. Free to people wandering through, the venue was refreshingly informal for an event type usually restricted to hallowed academic halls.

Yansong presented works from throughout MAD's existence, focusing particularly on each project's context and relationship to nature -- whether or not it was ever built. Considering that many of MAD's projects in China are located in new, developing cities, where the urban context can run quite thin, the building's relationship to n...

Book Launch: "L.A. [TEN]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture 1970s-1990s" author in conversation with Aaron Betsky, Sylvia Lavin

2014-02-06T12:34:00-05:00

Last Tuesday's book launch for L.A. [TEN]: Interviews on Los Angeles Architecture 1970s-1990s at the A+D Museum brought author Stephen Phillips in conversation with the book’s publisher, Lars Müller, and architecture critics (among other things) Aaron Betsky and Sylvia Lavin. The book is a collaborative effort, culling work from students in Cal Poly’s L.A. Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design, Wim de Wit and Christopher Alexander of the Getty Research Institute, and Phillips himself. As an initiative that pits students alongside practicing professionals, combining oral history with journalistic investigation, L.A. [TEN] is both the artifact of an educational performance and a signpost in the continuing attempt to historicize L.A.’s messy architectural identity.

Lavin and Betsky kicked off the launch with miniature lectures, riffing on L.A.’s environmental and cultural context during the book’s era. Lacking the institutional validation of a strong publishing culture, archite...

"Unbuilt SF" showcases past and future Bay Area architecture projects

2013-08-20T21:49:00-04:00

If San Franciscans like to describe their city as “49 square miles surrounded by reality,” the visionary ideas that were too grandiose for even San Franciscans to consider remain some of the most fantastic designs for any city in the world. Imagine a grand casino on Alcatraz, the city wrapped in freeways and a subdivision covering flattened hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

San Francisco is a small yet fierce city; its 7x7 mile girth is home to a rich history of social activism, tech start-ups, foodies, artists, composting programs and absurdist housing rates. Given its compact and hilly terrain, any addition or subtraction would drastically impact the city’s image -- how do you regard a San Francisco without the Transamerica pyramid, or with a giant freeway at the Embarcadero? As part of the Architecture and the City Festival, the “Unbuilt San Francisco” exhibition provokes citizens to consider their relationship to the city through its architecture, by examining designs for past and future landmarks.

This exhibition may sound familiar -- down south in Los Angeles, the A+D Museum is exhibiting similar themes of architectural potential with Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin’s “Never Built” show. As discussed here on Archinect a few weeks ago, the unrealized plans featured in “Never Built” are all about past imaginations of a city trying to choose its path...

L.A. imagined: The city that isn't

2013-01-23T20:12:00-05:00

It all leads one to ponder the what-if Los Angeles, to imagine the city that would exist today if the best proposals for remedying its ailments had been realized. Los Angeles would now include a ring of thousands of acres of urban and regional parks, a bold, space-age airport, a winged nature center for Griffith Park and hillside housing developments sculpted to the contours of the landscape rather than sitting on graded and terraced scars. We would be living in a very different city.

Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell talk about their co-curated show, Never Built: Los Angeles, which is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter.

Rethink LA: Perspectives on a Future City

2011-08-16T19:19:59-04:00

If you're in the Los Angeles area these days, we highly recommend to visit the excellent exhibition Rethink LA: Perspectives on a Future City, currently displayed at the Architecture and Design Museum on Wilshire Boulevard.

Images above: Rethink LA exhibition opening, August 4 (Photo courtesy of Rethink LA)

Created by Rethink LA, a collaboration of forward-thinking volunteers in the LA architecture, planning, motion graphics and design community, the interactive exhibit uses photographs and the technique of photomontage, alongside visual and audio narrations, and interactive installations to examine Los Angeles in the past, in the present, and projected forward fifty years to a post-oil future.

Starting from the theory that Los Angeles undergoes a major shift every 50 years, the exhibition proposes that the next shift will start with the decisions made today; resulting in a reality that is portrayed by a range of invited local and global contributors. Understanding ...