Archinect - News

Plastic straws, Slinkys, and metallic tape become spatial in this Chicago exhibition

2019-06-25T14:36:00-04:00

Fieldwork, a new exhibition at the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago by American artist Tara Donovan, presents an inventive and imaginative view into the nature of materiality.

The dynamic exhibition, made up of a collection of sculptural works by Donovan interpreting a variety of "mundane" and industrially-derived materials, creates textured works that occupy space in dramatic fashion.

Installation view. Photo: Michael Tropea.

First organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the exhibition demonstrates how "order and structure give way to unpredictability and how the mundane cedes to the marvelous," according to the exhibition website.

Included in the exhibition is a work titled Haze that uses yellowed plastic straws to create a bubbling wall that evokes a mountain range, for example, filling out the end of one gallery while seeming to provide a view to an exterior world.

Haze, a work made from plastic straws. Photo: Michael Tropea.

In another room, an untitled wo...

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...

DS+R vs. Tod Williams Billie Tsien?

2016-06-01T14:40:00-04:00

It is not the first time, though, that a design like this has been pitched for the university. However inadvertently, the DS+R design resembles another proposal for the campus—a draft project that was eventually revised. While the resemblance between two draft renderings is hardly consequential, this one comes as a surprise, given the nature of the projects and the history between the firms.

Raking only the choicest aesthetic muck, in this piece Kriston Capps wonders at the passing similarities between Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' initial proposed design for the University of Chicago's David Logan Center for Creative and Performing Arts and Diller, Scofidio, and Renfro's recently unveiled plans for the Rubenstein Forum, before bringing up the destruction of TWBTA's Folk Art Museum Building, which was destroyed to make way for DS+R's MoMA expansion. As Capps writes, "The tortured history between these firms suggests that a resemblance is something that these firms would rather avoid."

The latest on TWBTA:

"A stack of neighborhoods": DS+R's design for Rubenstein Forum revealed

2016-05-26T12:46:00-04:00

The University of Chicago, weary of holding large events off-campus, hired Diller, Scofidio and Renfro to design a 90,000 square foot, multi-faceted meeting place. The result is the Rubenstein Forum, which will be placed next to the Harris School of Public Policy’s future Keller Center and across the Midway from Rockefeller Chapel.

In terms of the design concept, Liz Diller stated that "we composed the tower as a stack of ‘neighborhoods’ with meeting and communal spaces of all sizes—both formal and informal, calm and animated, focused and diffuse. The building prompts its varied populations to cross paths with one another where possible to enhance intellectual exchange. The lower floors of the Rubenstein Forum are porous and dynamic with connections to the campus and the community in all directions. As one climbs the building, there is a progressive retreat from the everyday to more contemplative spaces with dramatic views of Chicago and Lake Michigan.”

What else is DS+R up to these ...

Editor's Picks #431

2015-10-09T10:37:00-04:00

Laura Amaya interviewed Giancarlo Mazzanti, founder and principal of El Equipo de Mazzanti. The two discussed "architecture for social inclusion...from a political point of view", play or leisure, and "an architecture made of parts...or open work".

Meanwhile the latest editions of Deans List: featured Kenneth Schwartz of Tulane School of Architecture and Amale Andraos of Columbia University's GSAPP. vado retro agreed that Tulane is a "great school in a great city. enjoy it while it is still above water."

News
In a collaboration with the Architecture Biennial, Archinect offered up an Chicago installment of Next Up, the live-podcasting event.

Patrik Schumacher shared some criticism of the event and participants "one still wonders whether these laudable concerns should usurp the space that was presumably meant to be allocated to contemporary architecture."

Herzog & de Meuron released the first look at their design for the new Vancouver Art Gallery, a significant update on the Gallery's ol...

University of Chicago will reportedly win race for Obama Presidential Library

2015-05-04T18:38:00-04:00

President Obama will choose the University of Chicago as the site for his presidential library, according to several reports and sources close to the Obama family. The proposal from the University of Chicago in Chicago’s South Side Hyde Park neighborhood, which is near where the Obamas have a home, their daughters attended grammar school and Michelle Obama worked as a vice president of the university’s medical center, is the apparent winner, reports and these sources say.

Previously

Building on Community: Architect Jeanne Gang reveals master plan for new University of Chicago dorm complex

2013-07-25T10:30:00-04:00

Esteemed Chicago architect Jeanne Gang unveiled the design plan for the new University of Chicago North Campus Residence Hall and Dining Commons this past Tuesday. Created by Studio Gang Architects and Mortenson Construction, the stunning $148 million project is expected to open in the fall of 2016 where Harry Weese's Pierce Tower currently stands.

The new structures intend to create a welcoming "front door" to the University of Chicago campus and function as an easy gateway to surrounding communities like Hyde Park. Each building towers at 15, 11, and 5 stories, at 250 feet in length, and will house about 800 students. A diagonal path will connect the project to the nearby Smart Museum of Art and the businesses on 55th Street. Gang's project will also include designated retail spaces.

The bent-rectangular form and windowed exterior give the structures a rejuvenating contemporary appeal without being pretentious--an ideal combination for the modern college student. At...