The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to announce the exhibition Silent Disco by Los Angeles-based architecture firm Barbara Bestor Architecture, on view in the SCI-Arc Gallery from April 1 through June 26, 2011.  Architecture students are the “imagined” client for this temporary disco installation. Providing respite from the institutional production of architecture with a lightly hedonistic program, Silent Disco aims to support social and communal experiences. The architectural project here is not limited to the execution of a design and its special effects, but a framework to encourage visual, physical and social pleasure.  The design of the structure is an overscaled, unfolded demi-dodecahedron model that contains a strong graphic interface.

“We are always interested in Southern California as both the site and subject of architecture and culture production,” says founding Principal Barbara Bestor, a SCI-Arc alumnus (M.Arch ‘92) and the chair of the new Graduate School of Architecture at Woodbury University. “The Silent Disco for SCI-Arc is a nightlife, student-oriented component of our larger project-making architecture that enables people to interact and experience ‘strange beauty’ in their environments.”

In addition to a discussion with architect Barbara Bestor and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss on April 8, there will be two DJ disco dance party nights in conjunction with the installation– ‘Disco Silencio’ on April 1 and ‘Disco Callado’ on April 22. However, the title ‘Silent Disco’ refers to both the less populated hours of the gallery–when the environment might be experienced by a student or two seeking relief from their computer screens– and to the space itself, when it is unplugged but still dancing.

About Bestor Architecture
Bestor Architecture is a Los Angeles based modern architecture firm founded in 1995. The office produces a varied body of design work that operates in the borderlands of popular culture, art and architecture. In recent years, Bestor Architecture has made art environments, installations, houses, graphics and commercial spaces, as well as published the book Bohemian Modern; Living in Silverlake (Harper Collins, 2006), dedicated to the informal and eccentric modernism found in Silverlake’s architectural history. Their built work has been featured in a wide range of media.

www.bestorarchitecture.com