Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype
June 28–December 1, 2013

Earthwave Installation, Traction Triangle at Bloom Square
At the intersection of Traction Avenue, Rose Street & East 3rd Street, the Arts District, Los Angeles
June 28–December 1, 2013
June 28, 7pm: Earthwave Opening Reception

SCI-Arc Gallery
October 11–December 1, 2013
October 11, 7pm: Exhibition Opening Reception & Symposium with Hernan Diaz Alonso, Christoph a. Kumpusch, Dwayne Oyler and Alexis Rochas, and introduction by SCI-Arc Director Eric Moss

SCI-Arc is pleased to announce Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype, an exhibition and public art installation assembled by an exhibition team including Hernan Diaz Alonso, Christoph A. Kumpusch, Dwayne Oyler and Alexis Rochas. Complemented by a symposium and catalog, this exhibition in the SCI-Arc Gallery and related large-scale public art installation in the Arts District’s Bloom Square, aims to demonstrate the fearless nature with which the late visionary architect and draftsman created.

When Lebbeus Woods lectured at SCI-Arc in 2003, he was introduced on stage by director Eric Owen Moss: “And finally, ‘I will forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. And I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use: Silence, exile, and cunning.’ So said Joyce’s Stephen Daedalus. I don’t know that Joyce’s goal is attainable. But it’s the most moving advocacy I know for Daedalus’ heroic aspiration. That aspiration also resonates in Lebbeus Woods’ voice. That is the Woods archetype. Silence. Exile. Cunning.”

Three blocks away from its campus in the Los Angeles Arts District, SCI-Arc will complete Woods’s Earthwave, an “inhabitable drawing” originally designed, but never built, for the 2009 Biennale of Architecture and Art of the Mediterranean in Reggio Calabria, Italy.  Earthwave was one of twenty drawings that reinterpreted area buildings destroyed in the 1908 Messina earthquake. The temporary 18’x 18’, two-and-a-half-ton steel structure built by SCI-Arc is set to be unveiled on June 28. It includes four parallel steel frame “swarms,” each frame penetrated by a dense field of steel vectors, using the urban Arts District as a backdrop for Woods’s dystopian vision. The public will be invited to conceptually inhabit the sculpture in a 1:1 scale, giving the piece a new dimensionality and relating back to the 2-D and 3-D nature of the project.

The SCI-Arc Gallery component of Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype, opening October 11, will include several original, rarely seen Woods drawings from private collections, and most notably, recently uncovered video footage from a 1998 interview recorded in Vico Morcote, Switzerland, then part of a SCI-Arc European campus program. The video articulates Woods’s philosophy and the forces and influences which shaped his thinking, including the work of Heinz von Foerster and the systems-thinking theory of Cybernetics. A public symposium on opening night will feature a panel of young architects who will discuss Woods’s influence on their generation.

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Support for Lebbeus Woods is an Archetype provided by Angel City Brewery. Additional assistance provided by the MAK Center Los Angeles, LADADspace and LARABA.

SCI-Arc exhibitions and public programs are made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.

Earthwave project team: Adam Orlinski, Ali Fouladi, Ryan J. Simons, William Orlando, Carlos Rodriguez, Cecil Barnes, Joe Jacobson.

Public Programs

The SCI-Arc Gallery is the only cultural space in Southern California dedicated to curating, commissioning, and exhibiting the artistic work of practicing contemporary architects, as well as scholarly examinations of experimental and contemporary architecture and art.

Parking and admission are free. No reservations are required. Events are broadcast live online at www.sciarc.edu/live.

SCI-Arc public programs are subject to change beyond our control. For the most current information, please visit www.sciarc.edu or call 213-613-2200.

Parking and Hours
The entrance to SCI-Arc's parking lot is at 350 Merrick Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013, between Traction Avenue and 4th Street in Los Angeles. The SCI-Arc Gallery is open daily from 10am–6pm; the Library Gallery is open daily from 12pm-6pm.

About SCI-Arc
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is dedicated to educating architects who will imagine and shape the future. It is an independent, accredited degree-granting institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture. Located in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, the school is distinguished by its vibrant studio culture and emphasis on process. SCI-Arc’s approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members, most of whom are practicing architects, work together to re-examine assumptions, create, explore and test the limits of architecture. SCI-Arc faculty and leadership have garnered more than 500 national and international design awards and recognitions, including Progressive Architecture awards, American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and the prestigious Jencks and Pritzker architecture prizes. SCI-Arc is ranked 1st in computer applications and 2nd in design in the 2013 America’s Best Architecture Schools survey from DesignIntelligence, and #1 graduate and undergraduate architecture school in Western U.S. SCI-Arc is located at 960 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. www.sciarc.edu