AAP News 05

AAP CORNELL ARCHITE NEWS05 ——FALL2008

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

It is a privilege to address you as the

••NEW DEAN Architecture, Art, and Planning.

of Cornell’s College of

Many of you have already been most gracious in welcoming me to the College and to Ithaca, and I look forward to meeting and working with the faculty, students, staff, and alumni. I have come to AAP at a remarkable moment; the forward momentum is palpable.

Milstein Hall is, of course, the most visible and public of the works on the College’s docket, but a host of parallel changes are underway that will also have long-term consequences for the intellectual, pedagogical, and creative life of AAP. The Department of Architecture has launched an international search for a new chair, and I want to take this opportunity to solicit nominations and recommendations for this important position. Very recently the Department of City and Regional Planning chair, William Goldsmith, stepped down, and I am most pleased to announce that Professor Kieran Donaghy has agreed to serve as the new CRP chair.

The College has a new associate dean with the appointment of Professor Barry Perlus from the art department. Barry and I will work closely with the faculty to advance college-wide initiatives that take advantage of the synergies between art, planning, and architecture as well as engaging cognate disciplines throughout the university.

The nascent New York program (AAP NYC) is expanding and will be home to students from all three departments this academic year for the first time. The fall lecture series is stellar, as is the upcoming Preston Thomas Memorial Lecture Series.

In short, my predecessors have left the College in extraordinary shape. I especially want to thank Professor Stan Taft for serving as interim dean and managing the affairs of the College with such diplomacy and insight for the past semester.

My intention is to continue this newsletter in its current form as a semi-annual publication. But events are moving quickly at AAP, and I invite you to stay in touch with us by whatever analog or digital means suits your style.

KENT KLEINMAN Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of Architecture, Art, and Planning

AAP NEWS

is published twice yearly by the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning at Cornell University, through the Office of the Dean.

College of Architecture, Art, and Planning Cornell University 129 East Sibley Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853 T 607 255.5317 aap_newsletter@cornell.edu Editor Aaron Goldweber Design Paul Soulellis (B.Arch. ’90), Soulellis Studio Copyeditor Laura Glenn Contributing writers Dan Aloi, Margherita Fabrizio, Aaron Goldweber, Ann Ju, Timothy Liddell, George Lowry, Mark Morris, Linda Myers, Judith Pratt, Krishna Ramanujan, and Steve Rokitka. © October 2008 Cornell University

Rendering of Paul Milstein Hall elevator. Credit: OMA.

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AAP CORNELL ARCHITE CTURE NEWS05 ——FALL2008 AAPnews2 WORK6 EVENTS14 REVIEW16 STUDENTnews20 FACULTY&STAFFnews24 ALUMNInews26

2——AAP•NEWS SIBLEY HALL ••AWKWARD • PERLUS•• GLOVER ••MILSTEIN HALL• CAREER SERVICES—— RENOVATIONS WILL MAKE SIBLEY HALL FULLY ACCESSIBLE Sibley Hall has been undergoing renovations this summer and fall to provide full access to people with disabilities. The modifications include the addition of a wheelchair ramp, two new elevators, and six new or upgraded restrooms.

The renovation project, overseen by Cornell’s Office of Project Design and Construction with the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), follows a 2007 survey to identify barriers to accessibility to Sibley Hall, conducted for the university by a consulting firm.

“AAP is grateful to Cornell administration for supporting the 2007 survey and now this construction to bring Sibley Hall into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA],” AAP assistant dean Peter Turner said.

A wheelchair ramp behind Sibley Hall is being installed on the northwest side of the building.

Workers also will install two elevator shafts, one on each side of Sibley Dome, through four stories of the building and the roofs of East and West Sibley.

“As Sibley is actually three separate buildings constructed years apart in time and with many different floor levels, each elevator will need numerous stops, back and front,” Turner said.

West Sibley was built in 1870 and its extension was completed in 1884; East Sibley was completed 10 years later. The center section known as Sibley Dome was built in 1901–02, connecting the east and west buildings.

The work will add two new restrooms in the Fine Arts Library, and four other existing restrooms in Sibley will be upgraded to ADA standards. The college also will install an elevator and ADA-compliant restrooms in Rand Hall during construction of Paul Milstein Hall, which is expected to begin in early 2009. Milstein will connect to both Rand and East Sibley.

The project addresses concerns stated by the National Architectural Accreditation Board (NAAB) in its reviews of AAP’s architecture program.

“The accreditation board has been on our case for many years now about how none of our facilities comply with the ADA requirements, and that has been quite embarrassing,” said Mark Cruvellier, chair of the Department of Architecture. “Even given the addition of Milstein Hall and adding an elevator to Rand Hall, they said that was all well and good, but it would still not address Sibley Hall.

“The accreditation board was here last spring and they reviewed and reiterated their long-standing issues with not being compliant,” Cruvellier continued. “They said Sibley should not be unattended to in that whole scenario. There are important and essential functions in Sibley that would not be accessible to students—[including] the dean’s offices, the library, and career services. It’s important in the scheme of things for all of our facilities to be accessible and compliant, so I am very pleased that this is happening.”

Turner said the “hard, intrusive work” of the construction in Sibley was completed in mid-August, before students returned for the fall semester. He also noted that the renovation has been approved by the Ithaca Landmarks Preservation Commission.

The renovation project has necessitated the final removal of trailers from behind Sibley Hall, where they were placed in 1986 to provide overflow space for studios and faculty and staff offices. The trailer removal is the latest step in preparation for the start of construction on Milstein Hall. AAP

01 Worker jackhammers floor in East Sibley basement during ongoing ADA-related construction throughout the building. Credit: William Staffeld.

02 Awkward: The Event has the crowd, especially Stan Taft, smiling. Credit: Victor Pollaci.

03 Associate Dean Barry Perlus. Credit: William Staffeld.

04 Lindsey Glover, recipient of the inaugural MargaretBourke White Photography Portfolio Prize, in front of the exhibition of her winning work outside of Cornell University president David Skorton’s office. Credit: William Staffeld.

05 Kim Wheeler discusses a career in planning during the City and Regional Planning Alumni Career Forum. Credit: Steve Rokitka.

06 The homepage of milsteinhall.cornell.edu features rotating images.

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WEARABLE, MUSICAL, EDIBLE CONTENT REVEALED AT AWKWARD: THE EVENT What is a publication?

Is it ink and paper, text and images? Can it be something more, or something else?

The artistic student lifestyle publication Awkward continues to stretch the perception of a ubiquitous part of Cornell campus life with innovative releases of a “magazine” that explores sensual means of communication and experience.

Its latest edition, Awkward: The Event, was presented at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art on February 23, as a fashion show combined with original music and dining, all created independently to relate to 13 texts published in an event program.

In effect, the “issue” consisted of wearable, musical, and edible interpretations of ideas.

Moving to music composed by local DJs and doctoral candidates in music, the student models added interpretive dance to the mix, while showing original fashions that ranged from revealing (“Logo Dress,” a giant letter “a” and little else) and futuristic (“Plugged” and “Feet on Concrete”) to local and popculture references (“Yoda Dress,” with an altered green T-shirt reading “Gorges Ithaca Is”) and a combination bridal/graduation gown (“M.B.S.”).

“When all the different

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PERLUS APPOINTED ASSOCIATE DEAN OF AAP Barry Perlus, associate professor of art, has been named as-

designers got together, they didn’t know each other,” said Awkward creative director Kirby Fowle ’08, a development sociology student, who introduced the show along with editor-in-chief Savinien Caracostea (B.Arch. ’09), an architecture student. “Some were more literal, and some were more about how the model looks.

No one was talking to anyone else, and this week it all came together.”

Sigrid Pauen and her Café DeWitt staff created 13 miniature gourmet dishes, including a guilt-

laced “2,000 Calorie Truffle” to accompany “The Morning after the Night Before.”

The show was presented at five hourly intervals in the museum lobby, with diners lining the runway constructed for the event.

“Awkward in the past has tried to take written work and make it more perceivable,” Fowle said. “Last year we did a box with different textures. We want to make the experience more enjoyable.”AAP

sociate dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. Perlus’s appointment was effective August 25, 2008.

“With over 24 years at AAP and in the art department, Barry brings to the position a wealth of experience,” said Kent Kleinman, Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of Architecture, Art, and Planning. “I am confident that Barry will provide vision and leadership for furthering the mission of the college.”

Perlus has been teaching courses in photography and digital imaging at the undergraduate and graduate level since 1984. In addition to visual projects based in Ithaca, Perlus has completed work in India and Nepal, and is currently producing a multimedia project about the astronomical observatories built in India in the early 1700s, supported in part through a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts.

“The range of talents and pedagogical interests of the faculty, students, and staff in the college has always impressed me,” said Perlus. “Now, as associate dean, I welcome the opportunity to work creatively across disciplines to advance AAP’s research and academic activities, and I look forward to working to evolve the college’s role within Cornell University and beyond.”

Perlus’s educational background includes an M.F.A. from Ohio University, a B.A. from Case Western Reserve University, and workshops with photographer Minor White.

“His presence is a superb addition to the college administration, and I hope you will join me in welcoming Barry to his new position,” said Kleinman.

Kleinman thanked Professor Werner Goehner for his leadership as associate dean during Stan Taft’s time as interim dean.AAP

GLOVER WINS PHOTO PORTFOLIO PRIZE Lindsey Glover (M.F.A. ’08) is the winner of the inaugural Margaret BourkeWhite Photography Portfolio Prize. She was honored at a reception on March 4, in President David Skorton’s Day Hall office. Glover’s winning portfolio entry, “Hollowed Out,” was displayed outside Skorton’s office through May. The portfolio competition, named for renowned photographer Margaret Bourke-White (’27), carries a $7,500 cash prize.

The competition is “very broad-based and inclusive,” said Department of Art chair Patricia Phillips. “The award was the idea of an anonymous donor who is deeply interested in photography and contemporary art and who has an abiding commitment to its students. It’s unique and distinct and an extremely generous award.”

The annual competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate students at Cornell.

“I’m very interested in shining a brighter light on the arts at this university,” Skorton said at the award reception.

Skorton has student artwork on the walls of his office, where he meets regularly with undergraduates, and student designs are featured on the holiday cards he and his wife, Robin Davisson, send out each year. And now the Bourke-White prize will be around “for a long time,” Skorton added.

“Hollowed Out” is a series of prints investigating and reconstructing a momentary glimpse, according to Glover. Its ethereal scenes of empty backyards, with varying points of focus, are surrounded by black as if seen through a viewfinder, blocking all peripheral vision. The images were layered and projected on translucent paper, creating a sense of diffusion and loss.

“I was interested in capturing being just vulnerable in that moment, because you’re taking something away when the shutter opens,” Glover said.

Glover, 25, is also a graduate of the School of Art and Design at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred.

She produced the “Hollowed Out” series in late 2006 and showed it on campus in Tjaden Gallery last spring. The prints have also been shown in Rhine, Germany, where Glover says she hopes to return next year.

“It’s work that I’ve admired for some time,” said Stan Taft, then-interim dean and associate professor of art. “It’s extraordinary work for a graduate student. It’s intense and provocative; I think it’s very potent.”

Jurors for the inaugural competition were Muhammad Iftikahr Dadi, professor of the history of art, and Nancy Green, senior curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. They selected Glover’s winning entry out of 85 portfolios submitted from across the university, or more than 800 photographs in all. Phillips said she expects both the number of entries and jurors to increase next year.

Glover’s work also includes video art and video installation. In January she was one of two M.F.A. students (with Alika Herreshoff [M.F.A. ’08]) to receive the 2007 John Hartell Graduate Award, given by Department of Art faculty in recognition of excellence in studio practice. Her other awards include a grant from the Cornell Council for the Arts and a Kloster Bentlage Residency.AAP

DONAGHY APPOINTED CHAIR OF CRP Professor Kieran Donaghy was appointed interim chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning. Donaghy’s appointment follows the resignation of Professor William Goldsmith who served as interim chair for the 2007–2008 academic year.

Donaghy, a regional scientist, came to AAP from the University of Illinois in January of 2007.

Donaghy’s teaching and research has involved the use of applied econometrics and dynamic systems modeling to evaluate policy interventions and support planning decisions. Much of his recent research has concerned the design of large-scale economic models for estimating regional impacts of climate change.

Donaghy has been a consultant to the World Bank, the European Commission, and other international and state and federal agencies. He was director of the Illinois European Union Center, and he served as the executive director of the Regional Science Association International. He’s recently coedited two books: Regional Climate Change and Variability and Globalization and Regional Economic Modeling.

Donaghy holds a B.A. in sociology from SUNY Albany and an M.S. and Ph.D. in regional science from Cornell.AAP

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CAREER SERVICES BRINGS TOGETHER STUDENTS AND ALUMNI FOR ADVICE AND NETWORKING AAP Career Services works with students to help them make the transition to the working world with every available advantage. Over the past several months, Career Services hosted two forums bringing AAP students together with alumni for panel discussions, portfolio critiques, networking, and advice.

CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING ALUMNI CAREER FORUM The annual Planning Alumni Career Forum offers students a chance to hear alumni career stories firsthand and to speak with alumni oneto-one. On March 28, three City and Regional Planning alumni returned to AAP to share their career experiences and advice with current undergraduate and graduate students. After brief alumni presentations, the forum moved to roundtable discussions, allowing students to interact directly with alumni throughout the afternoon. The forum also served as an attractor for prospective CRP graduate students visiting Sibley for an open house; they were invited to participate in an array of faculty, student, and college events.

The forum saw discussions about the diverse range of jobs performed by planners—from securing funding for nonprofits to making a career of historic building preservation. Kim Wheeler (M.R.P. ’04), said that the ability of planners to work in so many capacities was one of the things she hoped students would embrace. “[Being here today] makes me realize the impact of the choices that we make as we’re leaving school—you really

ARCHITECTURE ALUMNI CAREER FORUM The Architecture Alumni Career Forum, April 5, was equally well received, with over 30 alumni participating and more than 20 firms recruiting for internships, full-time positions, or both.

Sixteen alumni shared their advice with students through panel discussions. Rather than simply “talking shop,” many of the alumni focused on interpersonal and self-promotional skills as valuable assets, including networking, recognizing 03 good and bad job situations, “working the room” at a party, and conducting oneself in high-stress environments.

“I think that they were helpful in letting us, as students, know what the professional world is like, what’s out there and what is waiting for us,” said Mina Hasman (B.Arch. ’08).

In addition to highly pragmatic professional have the choice to go anywhere,” she said. “I’m skills, several of the architecture alumni stressed here to really challenge all of them to examine the need for students to begin the process of where they can go and make a difference in the making contacts and becoming known while still world.” a student.

Natalie Franz (’09), a master’s degree When asked what he would most want to candidate in historic preservation and planning, impart to current students, Michael Giardina said that knowing what alumni considered the (B.Arch.’83), replied, “to take full advantage of all memorable or useful parts of their college years the opportunities [at Cornell], and to be involved— was a high priority for her as a student. “It’s that’s the biggest word. I realized when I got out different for every person, but being able to that the people who were the most successful find out what they found valuable about their were involved in their education, involved in as experiences is probably one of the best reasons many different things as they could manage. Get to talk to alumni.” involved while you’re in school here. Make good Alumni participants at the City and Regional use of it.”

Planning Alumni Career forum included Robert Among the other alumni who attended Jaeger (’69, ’71), cofounder and executive were: Raymond Kwok (B.Arch. ’02); Rebecca director of Partners for Sacred Places; Thor Southworth (B.Arch. ’07); John Prokos (B.Arch.

Snilsberg, public space planner; Wheeler, ’80); Stephanie Wright (B.Arch. ’02); David Pennsylvania State Department of Community Weinberg (B.Arch. ’84); Michele Silvettiand Economic Development.

Schmitt (B.Arch. ’92); Michael Weber (’95); Recruit planning students for jobs and Natalie Hooper (B.Arch. ’05); Justin Doro internships at the Planning Alumni Career Forum: (B.Arch. ’05); Elie Gamburg (B.Arch. ’02); November 15, 2008. Contact AAP Career Services Gina Volpicelli (B.Arch. ’07); Stephanie at 607 255.7696 or aapcareer@cornell.edu for Goto (B.Arch. ’97); Daniel Gehman (B.Arch. ’86); more information.

Raj Chandnani (’95); and Angela Wong (B.Arch. ’05).AAP

AAP LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE FOR PAUL MILSTEIN HALL As the college gears up to break ground for the construction of Paul Milstein Hall next spring, the building has a new virtual home in cyberspace: milsteinhall.cornell.edu.

Designed to provide a dynamic user experience to a variety of stakeholders and interested websurfers on and off campus, the site features access to animated renderings, photos, design details, project updates, testimonials, and more.

Visitors to the site can read about the building’s renowned architect, Rem Koolhaas; find out about the sustainable design goals; download the recently released draft environmental impact statement; see how the new building will fit into its historic surrounds; and find out about giving opportunities to help support the construction of this important facility. The site will be regularly updated with appropriate news, events, and documents.AAP

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CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

4——AAP NEWS

AAP NYC Increases Numbers, Expands Offerings The third year of programming for AAP NYC is underway and promises to be its most important one to date. The Chelsea studio will host 33 students—a new high—drawn from the M.Arch.1 (professional) and undergraduate architecture programs as well as first-time participants from the Department of City and Regional Planning. The program is rapidly moving toward regular participation by all departments, with the Department of Art contributing to the course roster beginning in the Winter Session and January 2009 terms.

Margherita Fabrizio, administrative director for AAP NYC, reports recruitment is proceeding as planned. “The program is very appealing to students in the three departments. The urban studies majors want a big American city experience to contrast with living in a European capital during their Rome term, and they are eager to combine their course work with professional placements with leading innovators in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

“The architecture students have also found the program to be invaluable—not just academically but also in how it helps them explore their future work direction.

The art students, of course, want to be in the center of the art world. I think we will quickly see a large percentage of students from all three programs participating in both Rome and New York. I have already heard from freshmen who say they chose Cornell specifically because of the options of living and studying in two world capitals.”AAP

01 Iñaki Abalos and architecture student Gary He. Credit: Linda Myers.

02 M.Arch.2 students reviewing work on the Gowanus Canal project. Photo provided.

03 From left, students Nicky Chopra, Amanda Colon, Sonia Haerizadeh, Efrem Bycer, and Chris Donohoe work on a presentation during the summer Urban Scholars Program in New York City. Credit: Sarah Smith.

ART DEPARTMENT HOSTS INAUGURAL EXHIBITION OF M.F.A. THESIS WORK AT AAP NYC Cornell University’s Master of Fine Arts program made its presence known in New York with a dynamic inaugural exhibition of 2008 M.F.A. graduates at AAP’s New York City center last spring.

Patti Phillips, chair of the art department said, “As six artists present a first group thesis exhibition in the AAP NYC space, we encounter vivid evidence of the questions, issues, and preoccupations that drive their current work. What may seem to be a moment of conclusion and closure is actually thrillingly transitional. What we may see now in the work stimulates speculation—if inexact—about the developing concepts and deepening ideas of these independent, evolving art practices.”

With practices in sculpture, photography, video, print, and painting, Tara Cooper, Monique Crine, Alika Herreshoff, Lindsey Glover, Boaz Nadav-Manes, and Brian Sentman, by turns, presented a striking range of concerns: the erotic relationship of subject to object, the fragmentary performance of identity, narrative counterpoint and the cinematic, the uncanniness of site, the film still in relation to painted portraiture, and the graphic language and liminal subjectivity of cartoons.

Michael Ashkin, director of graduate studies, said, “I am excited that we now have an opportunity to exhibit our work in the city to which most of our faculty and students have the greatest connection. The timing of this exhibition is also particularly fortuitous because it is the first one since our M.F.A. program reconstituted itself as interdisciplinary a year ago.”AAP

THE FALL 2008 OFFERINGS INCLUDE—— Special Topics: History of Architecture & Urbanism New York: Capital of the Twentieth Century Instructor: Joan Ockman Special Topics: Theory of Architecture Superblock Manhattan Instructor: Andre Bideau

CORNELL URBAN SCHOLARS GAIN PERSPECTIVE, EXPERIENCE FROM SUMMER PROGRAM Tywanquila Walker spent the summer working with families in New York City and

came away with a new perspective on research and working with communities. She was part of the seventh class in the Cornell Urban Scholars Program (CUSP).

Professional Practice “I didn’t expect doing research in New Instructor: Jill Lerner York City to be so challenging. I also didn’t expect it to be such a valuable experience,” Thesis Proseminar said Walker, a Ph.D. candidate in developmental Instructor: Ben Gilmartin psychology who worked with the Family and Youth Development Division of Cornell University Equity and Sustainability in the Global City Cooperative Extension (CUCE-NYC). She created Instructor: John Nettleton a parent-education program designed to teach parents and caregivers simple skills to enhance Special Topics: language development in 6- to 18-month-old The Building of New York City: 400 Years infants. of People, Places, and Architecture “I’ve had the opportunity to travel to every Instructor: Ned Kaufman borough; meet practitioners who work with families and children every day; and, most Independent Study: importantly, talk about the difficulties of working Great Books in Planning: New York for a nonprofit and the rewards of seeing a family Instructor: Ann Forsyth become self-sufficient,” Walker said.

Thirty undergraduates and six graduate students took part in the eight-week program, which supports the efforts of innovative nonprofit organizations in the city and local government agencies to eliminate the fundamental causes of poverty. CUSP encourages talented Cornell students to pursue public service careers with organizations working with the city’s poorest children, families, and communities. The program is administered through AAP. “I saw it as a chance for me to experience the nonprofit world and what it adds to social justice,” said Ngozi Ofoche ’10, a government major at Cornell who worked with Facing History and Ourselves. The organization helps teachers cultivate a sense of civic responsibility in their students by providing classroom materials, teaching methods, and professional development services.

AAP’s “Their base method is a critical examination historic preservation planning program inaugurated a new initiative this summer, with Preservation: of history, namely events like the Holocaust and other genocides, that will help students to see the Sustainability, a set of four one-day classes for detrimental consequences of a society based in design professionals and students of AAP NYC bigotry, intolerance, and hate,” Ofoche said. and other sites around the city.

Undergraduates received certificates at a This effort is cosponsored by a number of recognition ceremony on July 23, and graduate environmental, preservation, and community students presented their work at a reception organizations. Seventeen nationally recognized on July 24 at AAP NYC. More than 100 people architects, planners, scientists, and community attended the reception—“more than we leaders lectured during the courses, which expected,” CUSP program manager Sarah Smith covered the major elements of sustainable said. “It was a great way to bring together Cornell design from the perspective of the conservation staff, all the supervisors from the organizations, of cultural and natural resources. The classes focused on green building, preservation and social all the students and their families, and alumni and funders.” Sponsors attending included the equity, and economics and the environment.

Heckscher Foundation for Children, which has AIA continuing education units were available. provided funding support since the program’s For more information, go to www.preservationinception.AAP shortcourse.org.AAP

HISTORIC PRESERVATION PROGRAM LAUNCHES PRESERVATION— SUSTAINABILITY

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NYC STUDENTS OF SPANISH ARCHITECT IÑAKI ÁBALOS REIMAGINE THE HIGH RISE Iñaki Ábalos, one of Spain’s most prominent architects, taught an

architecture studio, Verticalism: The Future of the Skyscraper, at AAP NYC during the spring 2008 semester. His premise: adapt the high rise so that it serves public as well as commercial functions.

New York is the ideal place to teach such a studio, because it is home to some of the most striking examples of the skyscraper in the world, says Ábalos, who is a founding partner of the Madrid-based architectural firm Ábalos and Herreros as well as head of his own independent practice, Ábalos Architects.

New York is one of Ábalos’s favorite cities, and his work is well known there. The author of four influential books, among them Tower and Office (MIT Press, 2003), he was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s “On Site: New Architecture in Spain” in 2006.

As part of the studio, Ábalos asked his 18 fourth-year architecture students to research and observe in the city around them examples of such urban building typologies as the single tower, the superblock—a group of towers of varying sizes, and the bundled tower—a combination of towers relating to each other structurally and functionally.

The students then worked in teams to design buildings and building complexes for three actual sites on Manhattan’s east side. The buildings needed to be linked, as well, to the new Second Avenue subway line currently being planned and built from 125th Street to Wall Street.

02 The students’ chief challenge was to reimagine for vertical, urban spaces such normally horizontal, rural facilities as a dairy farm and milkprocessing plant; a water treatment plant and a hydroponic vegetable farm and organic café; and a monastery and a cemetery. Ábalos also continually prodded them to think about how the public would move through such spaces.

With 13 B.Arch. students in residence, In addition, as part of the semester, students and several on-site lectures and events, spring had the opportunity to intern at such leading architecture practices in the city as Skidmore, 2008 was a busy semester in NYC. Among the Owens & Merrill; Richard Meier and Partners; and accomplished and varied faculty who taught Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects. at AAP NYC were the Spanish architect Iñaki Jenny Kononenko (’09), who hopes to get her license to practice architecture and join Ábalos and his associate, Urtzi Grau, of Princea New York City firm after she graduates, said: ton University (see accompanying article to the “The combination of the studio and professional practice was fantastic.” left). Their design studio concentrated on the Architecture student Day Jimenez (’09) possible future uses of skyscrapers as related to signed up for the studio and the city semester the development of a Second Avenue subway because he wanted to “take advantage of the opportunities in New York City.” He was not line in New York. disappointed. The city was exciting, and Professor Others who taught at AAP NYC were Jill Ábalos “brought a realistic point of view and also had a nice theoretical sense, which was a good Lerner (B.Arch. ’76), Cornell trustee and combination,” he commented.AAP principal at KPF; Ben Gilmartin of Diller, Read a brief interview with Professor Scofidio + Renfro; artist Oliver Lutz; Visiting Ábalos at www.aap.cornell.edu/news/newsitem. cfm?customel_datapageid_2892=93907.

Assistant Professor Dan Sherer; and Robert

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AAP NYC SPRING AND SUMMER 2008—THE BUSIEST YET

Silman (’56), founder and principal of Silman Associates.

While students in residence are the main users of AAP NYC, events occur at the center throughout the academic term. Lerner ran a professional practice workshop for AAP NYC in-residence students and students making a day trip from Ithaca. The AAP Alumni Advisory Council had a full day of meetings in the space and the Cornell Urban Scholars Program (CUSP) used the center as an orientation location for students who would return for this summer’s CUSP session.

AAP NYC was the setting for a roundtable discussion between Peter Eisenman and Kenneth Frampton titled “Architects as Critics/Critics as Architects,” which was moderated

by Sherer. Professor John Zissovici lectured on “Google Earth: Rethinking the City Through Its Image.”

During the summer, the Cornell Urban Scholars Program used the AAP NYC center as a home base, and 12 M.Arch.2 (postprofessional) students completed their third and final term of their program, using New York City, and specifically, the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, as their laboratory. Visiting Assistant Professor Mark Morris oversaw the program, and other instructors including Zissovici, Professor Mark Cruvellier, and Sanford Kwinter, as well as guest lecturers Kathy Battista, and Alexandros Washburn. James Biber (B.Arch. ’76), principal at Pentagram, led the studio. Professor Emeritus Victor Kord led a group of students on a tour of Chelsea’s art galleries.AAP

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CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

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WORK—— Hawaii • Sibley ••Spanish Music Center •• • New Orleans Chapbook• Urban Scholars —— CU STUDENTS ACROSS DISCIPLINES HELP DESIGN HAWAII’S FIRST ECO-FRIENDLY COMMUNITY A planned community with plug-in hybrid cars, an electricity-saving microgrid, and many other green features will soon sprout up on the Big Island of Hawaii, thanks to a group of Cornell students and faculty who have spent a year designing it.

The 13 students are members of CU Green, a group that links academia with industry. They are assisting developers in creating Palamanui, a 725-acre cutting-edge sustainable community on the Big Island.

CU Green was started last summer by mechanical and aerospace engineering assistant professor Max Zhang, who leads the project. Students from such varied disciplines as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, earth sciences, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and business are designing Palamanui around developer specifications that include a large residential sector, town center, business park, and hotel.

“This is a real development, and people are going to live in these homes,” Zhang said.

“It’s not a showcase, so that’s the most exciting part of it.”

Martha Bohm, a former visiting lecturer in architecture and project adviser, said she was especially impressed with the interdisciplinary nature of the work.

“It’s very important to the architecture profession to be able to work with structural engineers and lighting designers,” said Bohm, who taught a course in environmental systems.

Christina St. John (B.Arch. ’10), one of Bohm’s students, worked with mechanical engineering major Vinay Badami ’08 to create models of two proposed home designs, complete with window choice and lighting structure.

“We were able to generate a wider range of solutions for the home that were much more insightful than if either of us had tried to tackle this on our own,” Badami said.

St. John designed a passive cooling system for the homes to eliminate the need for air conditioning. Using climate-specific data, she created a schematic house design using cross ventilation.AAP

7 Elizabeth Schneider (B.F.A. ’08). Racoons. 4' x 3'. Hand painted woodcut with gold leaf. Schneider was the recipient of the Charles Baskerville Painting Award and the Post-Baccalaureate Thesis Award. She, along with Michael Covello (B.F.A. ’08) and Susanna Crum (B.F.A. ’08), will exhibit during the Art Post-Bac Exhibition at AAP NYC in December.

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

8——WORK

CORNELL PLANNING STUDENTS SURVEY A NEW ORLEANS NEIGHBORHOOD YET TO REBUILD George Frantz (’80, M.R.P. ’91), a visiting lecturer in City and Regional Planning (CRP), accompanied 14 students to New Orleans as part of the CRP Special Topics course, City Planning Design Studio: Imagining the Sustainable 9th Ward. Frantz has made five trips to

PAINTING CLASS FILLS SIBLEY STAIRWELL WITH ART Students in Ewa Harabasz’s Painting II class

BROOKLYN EIGHTH GRADERS VISIT ITHACA VIA CORNELL URBAN MENTORSHIP INITIATIVE During the spring semester, 40 eighth graders, 10 of their parents, two middle school teachers, and a principal made the long trip from Brooklyn to Ithaca to spend the weekend exploring college life and learning how to make college entrance a reality.

For the past semester and a half, the Cornell Urban Mentorship Initiative (CUMI) has brought together Cornell students and students from the Urban Assembly School for the Urban Environment (UE), a middle school nestled between Marcy and Tompkins Housing Projects in the heart of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. In the spring, the youth engaged in activities ranging from attending a Cornell basketball game to treating a panel of Cornell undergraduates and professors to a spoken-word slam to attending a panel in which they learned how to create a rooftop garden on top of their own school.

“It was a wonderful experience to have these eighth graders from an area that doesn’t have the same kind of advantages as the average Cornell student,” said Sarah Pressprich (M.R.P. ’09), a graduate assistant for the CUMI course. “To share the experience of higher education and of how they might get there was amazing.”

The two groups’ first in-person meeting took place last fall during a weekend trip to Brooklyn, where the UE students hosted the Cornellians. The students worked and played together in a variety of activities, including step routines, basketball, and one-on-one activities in which pairs worked together to create laws, governments, flags, anthems, and occupations in their “dream” countries. In addition, the group enjoyed the robust flavors of some of Brooklyn’s finest Caribbean and soul food cuisines.AAP Image credits for page 9: William Staffeld, Nam Suk Oh, Mili Shah, Koren Sin, Samuel Bell, Christina Joyce St. John, Michael Covello, Victor Pollaci, Susanna Crum, Carol Zou, and Elizabeth Schneider.

brought an underground art form to a space in East Sibley Hall as a class project this year.

Inspired by graffiti art, the 19 students taking the spring semester course produced their final project for the semester within a five-flight stairwell in Sibley.

Although it was a collective effort, the end result is considered one painting, said Harabasz, a visiting assistant professor of art. It also served as an alternative to the usual painting exhibition in Tjaden Hall.

“I had the idea for many semesters,” she said.

“I really had to push for people to do this project, and the administration needed to feel convinced before it could all happen.”

Criteria for the project included incorporating contemporary subject matter, portraying life-size human figures in action, and using three out of four available media—acrylic paint, spray paint (and airbrushing), transfer images, and stencils.

One of the project goals was discovering the different media, Harabasz explained.

The class completed five projects during the semester, ranging from classical oil painting to the use of experimental techniques, Harabasz said.

“We were doing a lot of new and unusual things,” she continued. “We also did everything a painting class is supposed to do. We used no Roman or Greek figures; we used things related to today’s life.”

The students prepared for the work for three weeks, making full-size sketches on paper and deciding what to paint in the stairwell. They worked from photographs and human figure studies from their other semester projects, which included painting two life-size figures in a moment of tension, painting from their photographs of a live model dressed as a construction worker, and representing a childhood memory.

“This is a very active and energetic group, with students from all over the world,” Harabasz said. “I work with many universities, but this group is very talented, very bright.”

Subjects the individual students painted in the stairwell include the Iraq War, nude figures, and religious and punk rock imagery. Independent thinking was encouraged, said Harabasz, who also monitored the project and ensured that the students followed safety standards and used ventilation, and safe types of paint.

“You’re doing ‘graffiti’ and trying to do this representation of this illegal art, and trying to follow regulations at the same time. It was an interesting paradox,” said Natalie Pierro (B.Arch. ’09). “I think that’s how we learned from the assignment, taking this illegal art and putting it through this more legalized process.”AAP See an online gallery of the photos at www.aap.cornell.edu/art/students/stairway-muralgallery.cfm.

CHAPBOOK FEATURES STUDENT ART AND POETRY AAP partnered with the College of Arts and Sciences and University Communications to produce the Poetry in Your Pocket/Art in Your Pocket chapbook with original poetry and artwork by Cornell University students. The book is intended to fit into a pocket and was distributed to every student at Food and Finance High School and to high school students attending the Bryant Park Poetry Reading as part of the 6th annual Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 17, 2008. Cornell distributed 1,000 chapbooks in Bryant Park, for the New York City high school students and others attending. The books feature visual work by nine award-winning student artists in the art department and verse by seven M.F.A. students in Kenneth McClane’s graduate poetry seminar.AAP For an online version, see www.aap.cornell. edu/art/students/art-in-your-pocket.cfm.

New Orleans and the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast of Mississippi since January 2006, a little over four months after Katrina.

Frantz’s students conducted a detailed property survey of a 60-block area of the city’s Lower 9th Ward, a once-densely populated working-class neighborhood that remains largely unoccupied 31 months after the storm.

“We were going to do just a general survey, [but] the focus became a very detailed survey,” Frantz said. “By Wednesday [the students] had a good understanding of what they had to do and they just dove right in and really took off.”

Students printed out maps and devised a code to mark the locations of vacant lots and which properties with structures still standing were occupied, damaged, destroyed, or under rehabilitation.

The data, in part, will be used to inform continuing efforts to build new, energy-efficient homes for low-to-moderate-income residents in the Lower 9th Ward.

“I’m getting a chance to work on the ground and to see how things are applied,” Simone Greenbaum (U.R.S. ’08) said. “The primary focus is not an academic exercise, it is more in service.”

The Cornell group also met with several residents, city officials, and community leaders devoted to recovery work. Steve Dominick of the city’s Office of Recovery and Development Administration talked with the students for two hours about citywide recovery plans since Katrina, some of them retooled after an outpouring of community response.

“A lot of debates came in 2006 about wet versus dry neighborhoods; it was about shrinking the city. That gave birth to citizen activism,” Dominick said. “I do think we’ve turned a corner, [and] you can use the planning process to get a lot of things done.”

Inspired by a talk the previous day by community development representative Mary Tran, several students (along with CRP professor John Forester, also visiting the city) helped clear land on March 20 for an urban farm and community garden in Viet Village, a Vietnamese enclave in New Orleans East. “[In] the Vietnamese community, you can see firsthand what can be done in a couple of years,” said Fernando Montejo (U.R.S. ’10), who was on his second service trip to New Orleans.

The group traveled along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and talked with workers in an aid camp who were rebuilding houses in Pearlington and with a Katrina survivor still living in a trailer in Biloxi. They also listened to former residents hoping to return to the 9th Ward, and attended a meeting of the 9th’s Holy Cross Neighborhood Association.

“This was a group of people who have an agenda, they’re organized and they’re moving forward,” Frantz said. “I am still very optimistic—there seemed to be a whole lot of energy in the Lower 9th Ward.”AAP your point of view and your experience, but you can get them to take a lot of cultural interest and give them a little bit of guidance and stimulus to see how architecture works. We can show them how we look at life through our architectural vision.”

One of the goals of the studio was to erase the boundary between academic and professional practice, García-Abril said.

“What happens in school is not always what happens in professional life. A studio is a sketch of what professional life should be,” he continued. architecture students in an Arch The music center is intended as a true public 501 studio received real-world space, adaptable to multiple uses and accommodating an audience of 1,000 people for single experience last spring semester, working on a new community mu- events.

“They discovered that Valencia, on a good sic center to be built in Valencia, sunny day, is a city where all the citizens occupy the public space,” García-Abril said. “Open-air Spain. Students visited the site public spaces are an important part of a Mediover spring break and met with terranean city, and that kind of cultural fusion is important.” architects in Valencia.

Mesa Molina added: “The fact that they’ve “We wanted to share all of our doubts and our been in the [Cornell in] Rome program helped concerns professionally with the students, with a them.” real site, real conditions, and the environment of Even using the real conditions of an impendwhat the project would be,” said Antón Garcíaing project, students were encouraged to be Abril, principal architect of Ensamble Studio in imaginative.

Madrid), who taught the studio with colleague “We wanted all of them to dream what kind Débora Mesa Molina. “We’re working with the real of facility would be good for the city and the site,” needs of the city of Valencia. Reality in urbanism García-Abril said. “One of the students is a saxoand architecture is so strong that we don’t need phone player who loves jazz, so he decided he to create any fiction around it.”

The music center will serve as a complemen- wanted to create a jazz club as part of the center. tary facility for the Berklee-SGAE (Spain’s General Another envisioned a big concert plaza. Another student wanted a space that could accommodate Society of Authors and Editors) Tower of Music different music styles.” and for the city of Valencia. The Berklee-SGAE Showing students how a builder works on a Tower of Music is an Ensamble project that is exproject also sheds light on the design of a strucpected to break ground within a year. The nearby ture and the process by which architects develop music center will house an international music ideas—and how “their drawings become truth,” education program created by the Boston-based Mesa Molina said.

Berklee School of Music.

“Sometimes I think they don’t believe it, that “We believe in the enormous talent of the stuwhat they draw can actually become true,” she dents,” García-Abril said. “Architecture is something very difficult to teach. You just can’t transmit concluded.AAP

ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS TAKE ON ‘REAL CONDITIONS’ IN SPANISH MUSIC CENTER PROJECT Eight Cornell

9

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

10——WORK

01 02

03

01 By M.Arch. students Nam Suk Oh, Mili Shah, and Koren Sin. 02 The sanctuary, looking toward the eternal flame and amphitheatre at the Freedom Park, Salvokop, Pretoria.

Collaboration of MMA Architects and Mashabane Rose.

Credit: Jeremy Foster.

03 By M.Arch. students Nam Suk Oh, Mili Shah, and Koren Sin.

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO VISITS 2010 WORLD CUP SITES IN JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA While

03

Johannesburg, South Africa, prepared for the 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, a Master of Architecture program studio studied how architects can address the opportunities and challenges a global event presents for its host country.

Students took their speculative design projects to Johannesburg in the spring, where they got a firsthand view of the city’s preparations and met with city development officials.

“It’s interesting to see the various forces at play in the run-up to the event,” said Andrea Simitch, who taught the studio with fellow associate professor of architecture John Zissovici and Jeremy Foster, visiting critic in architecture and city and regional planning.

Students were asked to consider “the relationship between the immediate effect and the afterlife” of the event on its surroundings; they researched South Africa extensively and studied similar large-scale events, including world’s fairs and Olympics.

“They found amazing things in their research,” said Foster, who was raised in South Africa.

“We’re trying to advance the proposition of an alternative form of practice that opens up architectural discourse to broader issues, [and] the notion of collaborative practice in the studio, as informed by various areas of expertise,” such as landscape architecture and planning, Simitch said.

Students were encouraged to work collaboratively and consider issues including event-based urbanism, accessibility of the World Cup to all strata of South African society, and the infrastructural web connecting rural and urban economies with capital-intensive projects.

“Infrastructure is a big deal in Johannesburg, because it’s a city of unequal development,” Foster said. “The transportation system is extremely politicized and uneven. The goal is to make [the event] accessible to everyone. Access to the city in both the physical and cultural sense is integral to the project of transformation.”

The studio also explored the role of media and of related events in shaping urban identities and cultural practices, such as the branding of soccer as a global sport and the identity South Africa will present as an economic, political, and cultural entity during the World Cup.AAP

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

Cornell in Rome students during a field trip to Matera. Credit: Jennifer Rector (B.Arch. ’10).

CORNELL architecture•art••planning architecture••art•planning NEWS 05——fall2008

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

BURIEL

L’Eglise Sa in

t-Pierre de

Firminy-Ve

rt

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

18——REVIEW

••Conferences •Lectures •• Exhibits ——Spring2008 JOSÉ OUBRERIE BRINGS LEGACY OF LE CORBUSIER TO CORNELL Students used to seeing state-of-the-

art digital presentations sat spellbound as José Oubrerie lectured as he drew with smudgy pastels on a scroll of paper pinned across the lecture hall. Once a member of Le Corbusier’s atelier, Oubrerie came to Cornell in April to deliver a lecture and attend an exhibition reception, both dedicated to the recently completed L’Eglise SaintPierre de Firminy-Vert.

Le Corbusier initially received the commission to design this parish church in 1960 and embarked on the design of this inspired project with the help of his young associate Oubrerie. The cornerstone was not laid for until 1970, by which time Corbusier had died. The project was later abandoned when money and political backing ran dry. Oubrerie, however, never lost his ambition to finish the project, and in 2001, it became possible as the newly elected mayor of Firminy had enlisted sufficient local and national support to resume construction.

Oubrerie studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and painting at the School of Fine Arts in Nantes. He has been chair at Ohio State University and the University of Kentucky. He has also taught at Columbia University, Cooper Union, and the Politecnico di Milano. A member of the Ordre des Architectes in France and an associate member of the AIA, Oubrerie has always maintained a practice; the Miller House outside Lexington and the French Consulate in Damascus are among his works.

His lecture, titled “Architecture Interruptus,” focused on the evolution of the Firminy project. In broad strokes Oubrerie sketched out the siting of the church, its sections and details, including its striking use of natural light. The accompanying show in Hartell Gallery, “When Cathedrals Are Gray,” included drawings, blueprints, and photographs of the church. The centerpiece of the exhibition was a large model with a demountable facade revealing the interior of the hyperboloid shell of the sanctuary, a conical projection of a circle on a square.

Visiting Assistant Professor Mark Morris organized the exhibition and introduced Oubrerie’s lecture: “When I met José as a student, I also met the project on his back—the incomplete project for Firminy-Vert. When a large shipping crate arrived from Paris to the school one day, he asked us to assist prying the box apart with a crowbar. Inside was a colossal model of the church.

We heaved it out onto the pavement and took turns sticking our heads in to get the effect of the light cannons and skylights. This was my introduction to the power of architectural models, their generosity as representational objects.” A similar scene was played out in front of Sibley Hall as the new model arrived on loan from the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus.

Professor Jerry Wells, a longtime colleague of Oubrerie’s, noted his friend’s intuitive process and persistent sense of humor despite the many setbacks with the project since the 70s: “We formed what you might call an ‘old farts club.’ José’s ideas were never old though, they kept re-forming around this project and seeing innovations as time passed.”

Oubrerie’s lecture touched on critiques of Modernism and Firminy-Vert’s relationship to Le Corbusier’s only other religious structures—Ronchamp and La Tourette. He also noted the cultural changes to the town of Firminy in the intervening years since he began the project. “It is not just a church, in fact, that is its minor program. It is also a performance space and a gallery and, the town hopes, a tourist magnet—architecture as a means of overcoming economic hardship since the decline of French industry in the area.” Despite its wide coverage in the international press, including cover stories by Metropolis and a feature in the New York Times, Oubrerie quipped that “if the critics like it, it is by Le Corbusier and if they don’t, it is by Oubrerie. I am used to that.

What is important is that the ideas behind it were strong enough to persist and reemerge now.”AAP

01 02

03 04

GORDON F. SANDER ’72 CAPTURES CU THEN AND NOW IN PHOTO EXHIBIT

05

Case Studies in Urban Development: San Francisco AAP focused on San Francisco at its third annual Case Studies in Urban Development (CSUD) conference, held February 29-March 1.

At “Creating the Next San Francisco: From Conflict to Collaboration,” speakers discussed projects that have helped shape the future of San Francisco, and highlighted the necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration for successful planning, design, and development of great cities.

Projects discussed included major development catalysts in the revitalization of the city’s South of Market Street district. Matt Witte (B.Arch. ’79), a founder of the Yerba Buena Alliance and sponsor of CSUD 2008, presented his experience with a project near the Moscone Center, starting in 1988 and going through 13 years of changes and delays.

Retail and other commercial anchor tenants had fled the city for the suburbs, and new office building development in San Francisco was at a standstill throughout the 1990s, Witte said.

The Paramount was eventually built and opened in 2001. The high-rise apartment building has retail, parking, and office space and 487 rental units, from affordable to luxury.

“There’s no way this project would work today, based on construction costs,” he said.

“That is a major challenge with high-rise development in the State of California.”

He outlined several lessons he learned and rules for developers, including: “Passion trumps politics—at least in San Francisco—but real estate is a locals’ game. Knowing the local landscape is essential”; “Choose your design/ development team very carefully” and “In the public realm, the developer’s mantra is: Make no enemies (you can never have too many friends).”

M.R.P. candidate Joann Winter said: “It has been very interesting to hear all the different perspectives on the development. They’re talking about the realities they faced and why the designs had to be that way.” Development in the city since the 1950s, she said, “went from a top-down process to one that had to involve the public.”

The public was key to development of AT&T Park, the city’s new Major League Baseball stadium, according to Amit Ghosh, chief planner with the San Francisco Planning Department, speaking March 1 in East Sibley.

(Ghosh also gave a keynote talk February 29 in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium.)

The park was built with private funding, after soliciting much public input. Also at the time, the Giants baseball organization was considering leaving the city. A proposal for a new park, needed since the early 1990s, was put to a referendum and approved by two-thirds of the voters.

After ‘an onerous public review process’ of environmental impact, noise, traffic, and other factors, the project gained corporate sponsor support and a 67-year lease from the Giants.

The park was situated to maximize mass transit access (including the MUNI and BART systems), and has turned an unused waterfront area into a public space, and has revitalized the surrounding neighborhoods.

“The trains worked, the traffic flowed, folks walked from downtown—it was actually a transformation of San Francisco, in that the people believed MUNI could take them where they want to go,” Ghosh said.

Other presenters at CSUD 2008 included Helen Sause, former deputy executive director for program and project management with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency; and architects Todd Schliemann (B.Arch. ’79) of Polshek Partnership Architects and Mark Hornberger (B.Arch. ’72) of Hornberger + Worstell.AAP

19

Capturing Cornell moments, from the silly to the sublime, over the past 40 years was a focus of “The Cornell Zone: 1968–2008,” a photography exhibition by Gordon F. Sander ’72 in the Fine Arts Library which debuted in May and ran through September 29.

The exhibition featured more than 80 iconic images of Cornell then and now and commemorates Sander’s 40-year relationship with the university and the college. The library was the centerpiece of the town and campus exhibition, which also included permanent installations at four Collegetown buildings—at 320 Dryden Road and 301, 305, and 414 Eddy Street—owned by real estate developer Nick Lambrou.

The photographs in the show ranged from wacky to romantic to sublime. In one a recent AAP graduate is seen posing with a gorilla’s head; a couple sharing a quiet moment on Libe Slope in 1968, juxtaposed with a couple in the same setting 40 years later; and there’s one of the shimmering fall foliage along Beebe Lake and its shimmering mirror image which could have been taken then or now. “Which is sort of the point of the exhibit, if it has a point,” Sander said.

Sander studied architecture and history at Cornell between 1968 and 1973 and returned to campus as artist-inresidence at Risley Residential College for the Arts from 2002 to 2004. His first formal photo exhibition was in 1972 in Willard Straight Hall. His work can be seen in several places on campus, including the Great Hall of Risley College, as well as the Fine Arts Library, where several photos from his large 2006 retrospective, “My World,” which he donated to the college, adorn the walls.

One of his photos is also in the collection of The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Sander lives in Ithaca and New York City and works out of the Fine Arts Library, where he continues to mentor students from both AAP and Risley in photography and writing.

Sander also is the author of a Pulitzer Prize–nominated biography of Rod Serling and the recent historical memoir The Frank Family That Survived, published by Cornell University Press. His articles, often illustrated by his photos, have appeared in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, and other publications.AAP

David Westendorff • Antón García-Abril •• Lisa Tziona Switkin • Gil Penalosa • Renato Funicello ———Julia Draganovic • Elena Manferdini •• Maria Cook • baukuh: Pier Paolo Tamburelli Tom Wiscombe • André Bideau— Mark West • Ann Markusen Renato Nicolini •• A12: Antonella Bruzzese • John Agnew • Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini Lynne Cooke—— • David Harvey • Joseph Kosuth •• John Zissovici •• Smita Srinivas • Massimo Casavola— Shirley Tse • Francesco Cellini • Christopher Hight • Luca Einaudi •• Dilip Ratha —Mel Chin •• Marcello Balbo • José Oubrerie • Paola Perez-Aleman ——Piero Pizzi Cannella • J. Meejin Yoon •• Akhil Gupta • Cristiano Toraldo di Francia • Amy Glasmeier————

01 Oubrerie (left) speaks with students and Mark Morris (right). Credit: William Staffeld.

02 Oubrerie (left) looks at the L’Eglise Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert model with his friend Professor Jerry Wells.

03 One of Ourbrerie’s pastel sketches that he drew while lecturing in Ithaca in April.

04 L’Eglise Saint-Pierre de Firminy-Vert model on display in Hartell Gallery. Credit: William Staffeld.

05 Todd Schliemann (B.Arch. ’79) at CSUD: San Francisco. Credit: Robert Stuart.

06 Green Dragon Café ceiling by Gordon Sander.

06

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

20——Student News

••Haud Program • Dragons •• Peace Corps Eidlitz •Portable Shelter • Awards

Awards COLLEGE MERRILL PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS Mohamed Khairul Anwar (B.S. ’08); Christine Michelle Buffalow (B.F.A. ’08) CHARLES GOODWIN SANDS MEMORIAL MEDAL Fabiana Maria Alvear (B.Arch. ’08) (Architecture, Silver); Reilly O’Neil Hogan (B.Arch. ’08) (Architecture, Bronze); Lukasz Adam Szlachcic (B.Arch. ’08) (Architecture, Bronze); Yoon Sun Yang (B.Arch. ’08) (Architecture, Bronze); Jillian Maia Weiss (B.F.A. ’08) (Art, Bronze) DEGREE MARSHALS ARCHITECTURE David Delaney Gull (B.Arch. ’08); Kai Wing Kelvin Leung (B.Arch. ’08) ART Benjamin Slocum Shattuck (B.F.A. ’08); Tania Tumminelli O’Brien (B.F.A. ’08) CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING Danier Bouza (B.S. ’08); Jeannine Mary Altavilla (B.S. ’08) COLLEGE NAME BANNER BEARERS Daniel Lorens Budish (B.S. ’08); Katherine Maxim Richardson (B.Arch. ’08) COLLEGE SYMBOL BANNER BEARER Kenneth Lau (B.Arch. ’08)

ART MICHAEL RAPUANO MEMORIAL AWARD Benjamin Slocum Shattuck (B.F.A. ’08) JOHN HARTELL AWARD Lindsey Ann Glover (M.F.A. ’08); Raphael Alika Herreshoff (M.F.A. ’08)

01

CITY AND REGIONAL PLANNING THOMAS W. MACKESEY PRIZE Claiborne Ellis Walthall (M.R.P. ’08) AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CERTIFIED PLANNERS OUTSTANDING STUDENT AWARD Kate Arting McConnell (M.R.P. ’08) JOHN W. REPS AWARD Kristen E. Vaughn Olson (M.A. ’08) URBAN AND REGIONAL STUDIES ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Danier Bouza (B.S. ’08) KERMIT C. PARSONS & JANICE I. PARSONS SCHOLARSHIP Brian Dennis (M.R.P. ’08); Theresa Anne White (B.S. ’08) DEPARTMENT OF CITY & REGIONAL PLANNING GRADUATE COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD Marcel Ionescu-Heroiu (Ph.D. ’08) ROBERT P. LIVERSIDGE III MEMORIAL BOOK AWARD Sara Schwarzberg (M.R.P. ’08) PETER B. ANDREWS MEMORIAL THESES PRIZE Jessica Claire Daniels (M.R.P. ’07) UPSTATE N.Y. CHAPTER OF AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION STUDENT PROJECT AWARD “Strategic Conservation Planning”: Martha Nebelsiek Hertzberg (M.R.P. ’08); Evelyn J. Israel (M.R.P. ’08); Kate Arting McConnell (M.R.P. ’08); Michelle Striney (M.L.A. ’08); Kaustubh Tamaskar; Krisztian Gabor Varsa (M.R.P. ’08); Neha Verma (M.R.P. ’09); Abigail Erin Webb (M.R.P. ’08)

FACULTY MEDAL OF ART Jillian Maia Weiss (B.F.A. ’08)

URBAN AND REGIONAL STUDIES COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD Stephen Dyer Miller (B.S. ’08)

DEPARTMENT OF ART DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Tania Tumminelli O’Brien (B.F.A. ’08)

PORTMAN GRADUATE STUDENT AWARD Jinwoo Kwon (M.R.P. ’09); Sarah Pressprich (M.R.P. ’09); Ross Pristera (M.R.P. ’09)

CHARLES BASKERVILLE PAINTING AWARD Elizabeth Mary Schneider (B.F.A. ’08); Raphael Alika Herreshoff (M.F.A. ’08) ELSIE DINSMORE POPKIN PAINTING AWARD Christopher Chiwan Cheung (B.F.A. ’08) MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO COMPETITION Lindsey Ann Glover (M.F.A. ’08)

ARCHITECTURE ALPHA RHO CHI MEDAL Siobhan Francois Rockcastle (B.Arch. ’08); Kristen Bryce Distefano (M.Arch. ’08) AIA HENRY ADAMS MEDAL & CERTIFICATE OF MERIT Kristen Bryce Distefano (M.Arch. ’08); David Delaney Gull (B.Arch. ’08)

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

AIA CERTIFICATE OF MERIT Craig Adam Sobeski (M.Arch. ’08); Kai Wing Kelvin Leung (B.Arch. ’08)

E. GORDON DAVIS TRAVELING FELLOWSHIP Matthew MacLeod (M.L.A. ’08)

WILLIAM S. DOWNING PRIZE Alana Rose Anderson (B.Arch. ’08)

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AWARD OF HONOR Stacy Day (M.L.A. ’08); Joseph Kubik (M.L.A. ’08); Kasey Toomey (M.L.A. ’08); Lacy Swanson (M.L.A. ’08)

CLIFTON BECKWITH BROWN MEMORIAL MEDAL Reilly O’Neil Hogan (B.Arch. ’08) AWARD FOR ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT Craig Adam Sobeski (M.Arch. ’08)

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS AWARD OF MERIT AWARD FOR BEST THESIS Bonnie Kim (M.L.A. ’08); Matthew MacLeod Javier Galindo (M.Arch. ’08) (M.L.A. ’08); Jennifer Ng (M.L.A. ’08); Michael ROSE MENDEZ SCHOLARSHIP Alexei Panich (M.L.A. ’08) Justin Chu (M.Arch. ’08)

NEWS Danier Bouza

(M.R.P. ’08) received the City and Regional Planning/Urban and Regional Studies Academic Achievement Award for having the highest undergraduate GPA within his major of study and was also given the First Degree Marshal Commencement Award for the same department in May 2008. Further, the undergraduate degree Cornell conferred on his behalf was Bachelor of Science with Honors.

Victoria Bredt (U.R.S. ’10) interned with the City of Cleveland Division of Water’s Office of Sustainability working on rain gardens and rain barrel projects. Participants in the Cleveland Summer Youth Program constructed, delivered, and installed 280 rain barrels in seven neighborhoods around the city and created four rain gardens on city property.

Bredt presented her paper “No Lawn Mowers on the Bus: Regulating Passenger Behavior in Small- and MediumSized Communities” at the 11th National Conference on Transportation Planning for Small- and Medium-Sized Communities.

Final projects from Professor Greg Halpern’s “Digital Capture: Photographing Place” have been published online at www.cornell-photo.com.

Matthew Hendren (M.R.P. ’08) has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student scholarship to Tunisia in Urban Development and Planning.

Hendren will be there for approximately one and a half years, continuing in his Arabic study that he began at Cornell and initiating participatory design and neighborhood planning of water reclamation projects for urban agriculture and gardening. Hendren said, “The ultimate hope is through these projects to suggest urban and national code revisions which are more supportive of urban agriculture.”

Elliot Hess (M.F.A ’08) had an installation in Tjaden Gallery called “Pulpy Products/Intensive Processes.” The show consisted of sculpture and works on paper.AAP

DRAGON DAY 2008 INVADES CORNELL ARTS QUAD Dragon Day. March 14. Under grim skies the phoenix, a vivid red creature with black eyes, yellow beak and accents of gold and yellow, rises from the ashes of Cornell history.

“Awesome,” onlookers declare.

Armand Awad ’11 and his all-freshman team of designers and builders with obvious delight resuscitated engineering’s response to architecture’s dragon, the product of the two schools’ decades-long “friendly rivalry.”

“We’ve heard tales from the past of how great the phoenix was, and that it had existed for years and years and years,” Awad said. “Long ago, engineering students decided they had had enough of the architecture students having their own holiday.”

Meanwhile, the dragon, in a stark departure from the minimalist exoskeletal 2007 version, was distinctly anthropomorphic, with an animated jaw, flapping “hands” and wings atop poles, along with undulating scales of foil and wood. Draped over a wooden frame was the dragon’s skin of translucent, loose-woven cloth panels of green, gold, and russet; its chest scales, made of cut-up yellow coffee cups, accented with a color scheme reminiscent of medieval coats of arms.

On the parade route, noisy with drummers and youthful whooping, students in costumes included the Spy vs. Spy cartoon characters; three young men dressed as sperm accompanied by students dressed as an egg and, in a nod to safe sexual practice, a young man encased in a double-layer condom; and the usual assortment of face-painted, unplaceable, vaguely bacchanalian figures. Students sporting grass beards and other wearable flora periodically shouted, “Landscape architecture! Yeah!”

“We just want to represent the engineering school and say, ‘We are here,’” asserted Awad, who with classmates has been designing the mythological bird since the fall semester. “The phoenix is traditionally not burned. It will be dismantled. We’re going to try to save the head and put it up in Duffield.”

During the brief but strangely intense clash of the two creatures at the Engineering Quad entrance, the dragon seemed to try to nip at, or perhaps smooch, the phoenix. The two titans parted after a few awkward moments.

Later, on the Arts Quad, its barren trees strewn with toilet paper and students, screams of “Burn it! Burn it!” filled the air. Torches lit the hapless dragon, onto which had been heaped debris from floats and costumes from the parade route.

Amid much roaring, red flames and black smoke shot into the sky as a wave of heat hit the crowd lining the cordoned-off immolation.

Remarked one awestruck student, in an apparent reference to a funeral pyre, “It’s like being in India, dude!” Hundreds of cell phones and cameras held overhead snapped the fiery tableau.AAP See an online photo gallery from Dragon Day 2008 at www.aap.cornell.edu/events/ dragonday2008.cfm

STUDENTS IN HAUD PROGRAM NET GRANTS Three Ph.D. students in the History of Architecture and Urban Development program have received prestigious research grants for the year. Chad Randl has received a FLAS (Foreign Language and Area Studies Program) grant to study advanced Polish in preparation for his dissertation research into Modernist Polish architectural history. Lawrence Chua has received a SSRC (Social Science Research Council) grant to conduct archival work in Thailand on 20th-century leisure spaces. Richard Guy will be a fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell working on his dissertation on the Dutch East India Trade company.AAP

02

• • •

21 01 Timothy Liddell on-site at an archeological dig in Italy this summer. Photo provided.

02 Elliot Hess (M.F.A. ’09). Untitled. 22" x 30". Mixed media on paper.

03 Julio Torres field tests his portable homeless shelter.

Photo provided.

ASSOCIATION LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE AND RELEASES NEW PRINT EDITION Association—an annual publication produced by AAP students that showcases the work of students, faculty, and alumni to promote interdisciplinary cooperation and dialogue—has just launched their third volume in the form of a new, interactive website (www.aap.cornell.edu/association) and a 184-page print edition. To gather content, the editors issued a college-wide competition, and works were selected for publication from the three departments. Also published were articles and images of Dragon Day, the Solar Decathlon, and the Green Dragon Café.

Those interested in submitting work to the Volume IV website and print publication should go to www.aap.cornell.edu/association. Site visitors will be able to post projects after registering as users. All website submissions will also be considered for the Volume IV printed publication. Contributors featured in the printed book will receive it for free when published. To submit to the Volume IV printed publication without publishing a project on the web, contributors can send submissions to association@cornell.edu. Submissions should be recent or current and include name, email, department, project title, high-quality (300 dpi) images of the project, and a brief project summary.AAP Contact the editors at association@cornell.edu for details on ordering Volume III.

MIXING DISCIPLINES: DISCOVERING ARCHITECTURE WITH TROWEL AND BRUSH Timothy Liddell (B.Arch. ’10) spent the summer working—and blogging about— his work at an Etruscan archeological dig near Florence, Italy. web.cornell.edu/studentblogs/tim/ Archaeologists always joke that the best things turn up at the end of the season, before storms, or in the scarp of a trench. With three days left in the excavation season and rain in the forecast, I eagerly dug through Stratum 4, hoping to find something to write home about.

Ten centimeters down—at the bottom of the pass—my digging partners and I came upon a large flat stone with a perfectly curved edge.

It took two more days with trowel and brush to confirm our initial suspicion that we had found a column base.

This was not the first column base unearthed at Poggio Colla, an Etruscan archaeological site near Florence, Italy. Nonetheless, all of us in trench PC-33 were noticeably excited. After 2,300 years, we were the first to see this particular specimen of Etruscan craftsmanship—evidence that there was a temple here at the northern extent of the Etruscan civilization.

The past six weeks working as architecture intern at the Poggio Colla Field School have been full of other exciting moments. We uncovered Roman coins, fragmented vessels, black glaze pottery, iron nails, bronze lumps, and architectural stones. But digging is only one facet of an active archaeological site. A large staff is also devoted to surveying, coring, conservation, illustration, site mapping, and research.

Architecture school and summer construction jobs prepared me well for these activities, and I tried my hand at nearly everything. On site, I

excavated and used a total station to measure the location of important finds. In the lab, we mapped the data three-dimensionally in AutoCAD, and I took on various drawing assignments.

Throughout all of this, it was interesting for me to consider the relationship between the disciplines of architecture and Aachaeology. We study how buildings are built; they study how buildings fall apart. We work to define the future; they work to define the past.

I learned this summer that despite our differences, architects and archaeologists have a lot to offer one another. We share a common vocabulary to describe the built environment and use similar tools to document it. Exposure to archaeology has given me an entirely new understanding of my own discipline.

After two months in Italy, I begin my semester abroad in Rome. I could not have asked for a better introduction to this country and the ancient civilizations that helped to make it such a fascinating place.AAP

EIDLITZ FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS NAMED The Robert Eidlitz Fellowship committee recently selected recipients for the

HISTORY OF ART MAJORS SOCIETY EXPLORES BOUNDARIES OF ART AND THE BODY IN ‘EXQUISITE CORPUS’ Bodies—inside and outside, observed, exposed, reflected, hacked to pieces or otherwise taken apart, deconstructed and reconstructed—were the subject of the student-organized Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art exhibition Exquisite Corpus: Interacting with the Fragmented Body.

The exhibition was curated by the History of Art Majors Society as its annual showcase at the Johnson. The students also prepared an exhibition catalog, wrote essays on the artwork, and brought guest artists STELARC and Vlatka Horvat to campus for public talks. Society members Sarah Humphreville and Stef Hirsch, both fourth-year dual majors in fine arts and the history of art, led an Art for Lunch tour of the exhibition.

Interaction was a key feature, with film and video, Polaroid photography, and internet-based works among 2-D and sculptural elements.

“In contemporary art right now, there are no limits, no boundaries,” Hirsch said. “We wanted to show contemporary work, and show that art can be anything, maybe even vulgar.”

The title and concept refer to the Exquisite Corpse, a Surrealist exercise in which three artists independently draw a section of a body: head, torso, and legs.AAP

PORTABLE SHELTER: A CLASS PROJECT GETS PERSONAL Julio Torres’s creation looks something like a cross between a snail

shell and a covered wagon—a hinged platform covered by insulated cloth stretched over wooden ribs. You wouldn’t think so at first glance, but this unique form is intended to be a homeless shelter—not a brick-and-mortar building struggling to keep beds available, but a portable and efficient way to give people in need a warm space of their own.

“It’s a small space,” said Torres (B.Arch. ’10), “but it’s a private space. The shelter is designed so people can sit up in the center. I’m six-feet tall, and I can sit in the center and read.”

By lifting up one end of the fabric covering, a person can climb inside where there’s space to curl up, sit upright, and even stretch out a little. The bottom platform sits on wooden rails, something essential when available space could be uneven, wet, or full of broken glass. It is lightweight, insulated, and built out of cheap, abundant materials—plywood, canvas, egg crate The Peace Corps recently welcomed Cornell University as its foam, and nylon. The real trick of Torres’s shelter, newest Fellows/USA partner school. Cornell joins more than 45 other institutions in offering the Felhowever, comes when the hinged platform is lows/USA option to returned Peace Corps Volunteers. Cornell’s program, offered through the Departfolded in half and, in a matter of seconds, goes ment of City and Regional Planning (CRP), will grant successful fellows master’s degrees in regional from being a shelter to being a backpack, easily planning (MRP). set up and transported.

Mildred Warner, director of graduate studies in CRP said, “We are very pleased to be able to The project began as a class assignment partner with Peace Corps in the fellows program. Returned Peace Corps volunteers make excellent at SUNY Morrisville, where Torres, a native of graduate students, and we are excited to be able to place them to work with distressed urban the Dominican Republic, got an associate’s communities here in New York as part of our graduate research fellowship in children, family, and degree in architectural graphics and design community development policy-making. The program has just been inaugurated and thanks to early before transferring to Cornell in fall 2007. Torres notice by Peace Corps, we have already been able to accept three students into our master’s program and fellow classmates presented the shelter in Regional Planning here at Cornell University for next year. The field of urban planning is becoming at a conference of the Collegiate Science and increasingly important for Peace Corps, and the experience of returned Peace Corps Volunteers can Technology Entry Program (CSTEP), a statebe very helpful in distressed U.S. communities. This partnership is good for all.” funded program that gives grants to students Volunteers who have satisfactorily completed their Peace Corps service will be eligible for the entering science and technology fields. It was well program, which, in addition to classwork toward the degree, requires a summer placement with Cornell received, but was disqualified. (“Technically,” said Urban Scholars, a program that supports field assignments with community organizations serving Torres, “we were never invited.”) Since transferring New York City’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The Cornell Urban Scholars program will provide to Cornell, Torres has been working on a redesign students with a research stipend and housing allowance for their summer placement. of the shelter using newfound knowledge about Peace Corps director Ron Tschetter said, “I am enthusiastic about our new partnership with fabrication and materials.

Cornell University. With this partnership, the Peace Corps will have the opportunity to further develop “You learn all these things in class, you can the skills of Volunteers in the area of urban and regional planning. I am confident that Cornell University apply it to anything you do,” he said. “It was great will be a strong Fellows/USA partner.”AAP to be able to redesign this with the knowledge 2008–09 Eidlitz Travel Fellowships.

From 25 proposals submitted by students and alumni, the following six projects received funding: Afra Farry (B.Arch. ’08) and Sara Arfaian (B.Arch. ’08): Neo-nomadic mobilities: The Transhumance of Habitation, Savina Vankova Kalkandzhieva (M.Arch. ’10): Reconnect the Threads: Reflections on the Continuum of National Identity and Global Integration, Matthew Vincent MacLeod ’08: Athens: Examining the PostOlympic City, Siobhan Rockcastle (B.Arch. ’08): Powered by Iceland, Lukasz Adam Szlachcic (B.Arch. ’08): Reterritorialization: Socialist Housing and Market Forces.AAP

PEACE CORPS FELLOWS/USA PARTNERS WITH CORNELL

that I have gained at Cornell.”

In his redesign, Torres has lightened the shelter, improved its insulation, and has begun to see exactly how feasible it could be to produce large numbers of his design at minimal cost.

“I only had a budget of $100 to build this, but if you mass-produce something you go to the manufacturer of the materials and get a discount.

I could make these for way under $50,” he explained.

With his prototype almost complete, Torres is preparing to field test his design in some of the harshest conditions it might be asked to face—a cold night in upstate New York.

“I want to test it myself in the cold weather.

I’m going to sleep in it and take measurements of the temperature inside, then compare it to the temperature outside,” said Torres.

The data he collects, along with photos and documentation, will be presented again at this year’s CSTEP conference. Torres says that afterward, he hopes to find a group or individual to hand off his design to for mass production while he finishes his schooling. As for the prototype, Torres wants it to go immediately to work as it was intended.

“I’m going to take it to an area in Ithaca where there are homeles people and give it to someone who can use it. In the future I’d like to build more and give them out. It’s a fun project for me, and I feel good about doing it,” he said.AAP 03

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

Elaine Lu (B.Arch. ’12). Credit: William Staffeld

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

24——Faculty&Staff News

Ashkin • Benería • Christopherson • Paddlistas • F ba-Kasongo • McDougal • McGrain • Ochshorn • Stein • Warner

01

ART PROFESSOR NORMAN D. DALY DIES AT AGE 96

Norman D. Daly, professor emeritus of art, died at Cayuga Medical Center, April 2, after a brief illness. He was 96 years old.

Daly taught painting and drawing in the Department of Art for 57 years (1943–1999), 24 of them as an emeritus professor. He was the first recipient of the John Hartell Award for Distinguished Teaching in AAP. Born August 9, 1911, in Pittsburgh, as the youngest of seven children, Daly started painting and drawing as a teenager. He majored in art at the University of Colorado, graduating in 1937; studied in Paris on a fellowship in 1937–38; and received an M.F.A. from Ohio State University in 1940.

He began exhibiting his paintings in New York in the 1940s; some of his paintings are represented in numerous permanent collections in U.S. museums.

In the 1960s he became interested in sculpture, working mainly with assemblages and marble carvings. This sculpture was the starting point for his most extensive project, the creation of an entire ancient civilization called Llhuros.

Combining aspects of conceptual art with a determined attention to traditional aesthetic values, Llhuros came to be recognized as the foundation of “archaeological art.” The project was exhibited widely in the United States and Germany in 1972–74. Elements of Llhuros were included in a retrospective of Daly’s work at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in 2004.AAP

News Professor of art Michael Ashkin presented his Hiding places are many, escape only one at Market Forces, Part I at Carriage Trade in New York. Constructed out of cardboard on the gallery floor, Ashkin’s piece was a section of a sprawling squatter city, made up of clusters of buildings with no real center or hierarchy of purpose.

CRP professor Lourdes Benería has spent her first (out of five) spring semesters in Barcelona, Spain, where she has become Research Associate at the Inter-University Institute for the Study of Women and Gender (IIEDG). Her work on the crisis of care in Europe and on the feminization of Latin American migration is coming out in several publications and was the subject of her keynote speech at the Conference of Latino-Americanists in Fribourg, Switzerland (March 2008). She spent one month in Bolivia with funding from the Gender and Geography team research at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

CRP’s Visiting Associate Professor Nancy Brooks has returned for her second year at AAP. Brooks’s research centers on policy-oriented theoretical and empirical microeconomics with a focus on environmental and urban/regional economics and local economic development. Her research has a multi-disciplinary focus that overlaps with geography, regional science, and sociology. A common thread that weaves through her work is the investigation of the implications for both equity and efficiency 02 of the market failure typically known as an externality. Brooks provides instruction in both the Department of City and Regional Planning and the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. She holds a B.A. in economics from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Susan Christopherson of the Department of City and Regional Planning is the recipient of a Zalaznick Award, which will help fund her graduate teaching research scholarships.

The Cornell Paddlistas, a dragon boat crew made up primarily of faculty, staff, and graduate students from the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, competed in the 2008 Ithaca Dragon Boat Festival. They didn’t finish in the top four, but George Frantz, crew captain and visiting lecturer in the Department of City and Regional Planning says, “We did not fare as well as we would have liked, but we plan to be back next year!”

Professor Ann Forsyth from the Department of City and Regional Planning recently coedited a special issue of the Journal of Urban Design on pedestrians and walking, which included her editorial “Cities Afoot: Pedestrians, Walkability, and Urban Design” (2008 13, 1:1–3, with CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

ART ON A BARN, OF A BARN: BRUMMUND HOLDS PUBLIC ART PROJECT In June,

AAP’s Karen Brummund installed a full-scale drawing of a barn on the very building it depicts at 135 Storm Road in Groton, NY. The public’s participation in the project became both art and documentation.

Brummund, formerly a digital image instruction assistant for Cornell’s Fine Arts Library and the college, makes time-based drawings that use public space like a canvas. For this project, she created a drawing of the barn in Groton, digitally enlarged it to the same scale as the building and printed the image on letter-size paper to hang on the barn’s façade. The interlacing layers of the real and the represented create a new, imaginary space, Brummund says.

The installation remained until the papers are destroyed by weather and fell off. It was documented through video, photography, and community drawings, to be integrated as layers in future artworks.

Brummund hung the installation June 14, and a “Community Draw” was held June 15 on the site. Drawings contributed to the artist will help document the project in exhibitions and inspire new work.

The Storm Road project was supported by the Cornell Council for the Arts and a New York State Council on the Arts Decentralization Grant administered by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.AAP

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Forsyth • Halpern • Hascup • Locey • Lumum• Park • Reps • Roig • Rugerri • Slammers •

04

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Michael Southworth). She also published “Great Programs in Architecture: Rankings, Performance Assessments, and Diverse Paths to Prominence,” in the International Journal of Architectural Research (2008 2, 2:11–22).

Art professor Greg Halpern’s photographs appeared in the group show “Working Title” at Momenta Art in Brooklyn.

George Hascup, professor in the Department of Architecture, has been awarded the 2008 Martin Dominguez Award for Distinguished Teaching. Each year, the recipient of this award is nominated by department students and selected by a committee of faculty to receive the distinction and a monetary contribution to the recipient’s research/practice effort.

Jean Locey, professor of art, has had a number of recent solo and group exhibitions, including “Investigation by Portraiture: A Collaborative Project” at the Humanities Fine Arts Gallery, University of Minnesota and “Symbolic Formation/Myth into Symbol” at Must Be Contemporary Art Center in Dashanzi, Beijing, China. Locey was on sabbatical leave during the spring 2008 semester and returned to Maine to take up her study of the rocks and water for the series, “Earth Eggs,” and extend the time-based nature of the work—the grids and double and triple images—through video. She was awarded a residency at the MacNamara Foundation, in Westport Island, Maine, where she began this project.

Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, visiting scholar in city and regional planning, presented “Conflict Prevention in Africa, Specifically the Case of the Congo” at the 9th annual conference of the Global Development Network in Brisbane, Australia, where he also participated in the workshop called “Fragile State.” His participation was sponsored by the Japan International Development Cooperation in Tokyo, Japan.

Graham McDougal, lecturer in the Department of Art, had a solo show called “Republic” at the Rural Research Laboratories at the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY. Republic is “embodied in a variety of media between representation and abstraction,” including photocopies, transparencies, ink drawings, woodcuts, collage, and more. McDougal also had an Artists Book Project at Printed Matter in New York called Two Seats in the Scottish Parliament and participated in a group show called Re-Group at California State University–Chico in May. Professor of art Todd McGrain showed his work at Spazi Aperti in Rome. Included in the show was a sonogram of the call of the last Dusky Seaside Sparrow and a drawing of the Great Auk. McGrain spent four months working with the zoological museum in Rome on his “Lost Bird Project.” McGrain also exhibited five bronze memorials to extinct birds at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. Jonathan Ochshorn, professor of architecture, will be chairing a paper session at the next Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) in Portland, Oregon, March 2009. The topic, chosen in a peer-reviewed “session topic competition,” is Design Abstraction and Building Construction.

Assistant professor of art Maria Park participated in two group shows this summer: “Re-Mix 2” at Margaret Thatcher Projects in New York City and “Ten” at Toomey Tourell Fine Art in San Francisco. Park was also named the 2008 recipient of the Watts Prize for Faculty Excellence in recognition of “distinguished achievement in undergraduate teaching and honors dedication, concern for education, and demonstrated technical expertise….”

At the May meeting of the American Historical Prints Society in St. Louis, Professor Emeritus John Reps of City and Regional Planning received the annual award for the best recent book published on American historical prints.

John Caspar Wild: Painter and Printmaker of Nineteenth-Century Urban America (St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2006) was timed to coincide with the opening of an exhibit at the Society of Wild’s views of St. Louis, along with examples of his paintings and prints of Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and river towns in and around Davenport, Iowa. At the opening Reps gave a lecture on Wild and his work.

Wilka Roig, visiting assistant professor of art, exhibited “Plan Against Loneliness” at Rural Research Laboratories in Elmira, NY. The show—an audience-artist collaboration—started with a waiting room, some seats, some cameras,

25

a photography darkroom, and an empty gallery that was filled with photographs as the audience and artist interacted. Also, in June, Roig was an artist in residence at the Center for Photography in Woodstock.

Deni Rugerri (M.L.A. ’01, M.R.P. ’01) recently joined Cornell’s Department of Landscape Architecture. Ruggeri has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Milan Polytechnical in Italy.

He has master’s degrees from Cornell in both landscape architecture and city and regional planning. In addition, he studied landscape architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design.

He is currently finishing a Ph.D. in landscape architecture and environmental planning at the University of California, Berkeley. For the past seven years, Ruggeri has also been a practicing landscape architect in California. His research focuses on the interface between design and people’s activities in establishing a sense of place; he is particularly interested in suburban landscapes.

The inaugural season for the Sibley Slammers recreational softball team, made up primarily of AAP staff, didn’t result in many wins, but did result in many laughs, some exercise, and a few pulled muscles. The Slammers are already looking forward to taking the field next year.

Professor Emeritus Stuart W. Stein, CRP, former chair of the Tompkins County Board of Representatives, once half the partnership of the prominent planning firm Blair-Stein, was awarded the first Howard Cogan Tourism Award by the Tompkins County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau.

Mildred Warner of the Department of City and Regional Planning was promoted to professor. This past spring she and M.R.P. student, Evelyn Israel, worked with the American Planning Association to conduct a nationwide survey of planners’ role in creating familyfriendly cities. Preliminary survey results were presented at the American Planning Association meetings in Las Vegas in April. Warner also edited two new volumes—one on privatization in local government services, stemming from a conference in Barcelona with comparative U.S. and European papers, was in collaboration with Professor Germa Bel of University of Barcelona; the other edited volume was on child care and economic development, with papers from the United States and Canada. Copies can be downloaded from her website at government.cce. cornell.edu/doc/reports/childcare/ijed.asp.

01 Norman Daly at his home in 2004. Credit: Linda Myers.

02 Nancy Brooks. Photo provided.

03 Karen Brummund’s art on a barn project. Credit: Karen Brummund.

04 Graham McDougal. Republic. 2008. 19" x 26". Fatigued wood block print. Rural Research Labs, Elimira, NY. 05 John Nettleton. Photo provided.

FORSYTH AND NETTLETON TO LEAD CUSP City and Regional Planning’s Professor Ann Forsyth has been named campus director, and senior lecturer John Nettleton has been named executive director of the Cornell Urban Scholars Program.

Trained in planning and architecture, Forsyth works mainly on the social aspects of physical planning and urban development and how to make more sustainable and healthy cities. She directed the Metropolitan Design Center at the University of Minnesota (2002–2007) and before that codirected a small community design group, the Urban Places Project. In doing this work she has created a number of new tools and methods in planning—an urban design inventory, GIS protocols, health impact assessments, and participatory planning techniques.

Nettleton’s work has most recently focused on sustainable development issues and the role of biofuels, energy efficiency plans, and strategies as community development tools responsive to climate change. Prior to joining CRP, Nettleton directed community economic development efforts for Cornell Cooperative Extension/New York City, where he developed and initiated the State of New York website for MarketMaker, a national network of web-based platforms linking agriculture producers and consumers. He also previously worked with a private advocacy planning practice and served on the governor’s planning team to develop and implement New Jersey’s Pinelands Plan. Nettleton will continue to be based in New York City.AAP

05

SWARTZ NAMED COORDINATOR OF CAREER SERVICES FOR PROGRAM IN REAL ESTATE Cornell University’s Program in Real Estate announced that Kimberlee Swartz has accepted a position as coordinator of Career Services.

Swartz will coordinate the Real Estate Program’s Office of Career Services, which provides broad real estate career and outreach services to students, alumni, and Cornell Real Estate Council members. In addition to career development advising, Swartz will work closely with the real estate industry to cultivate internship and placement opportunities for Cornell real estate students; she will also be responsible for the Job Barometer, a leading bi-annual report on the commercial real estate job market that is a joint effort between SelectLeaders and the Cornell Program in Real Estate.

Before coming to Cornell in 2007, where she has been employed as an executive staff assistant at the Public Service Center, Swartz was an operations manager with Wegmans Food and Pharmacy for 15 years.

Swartz received an M.B.A. from Syracuse University and a B.S. in Hotel and Restaurant Management from Rochester Institute of Technology.AAP

NEW JOURNAL RECEIVES GRANT, SET TO LAUNCH NEXT SUMMER Cultural workers yearning for rigorous scholarship and insight into contemporary urbanism will soon have a new resource to turn to.

CriticalProductive, a new journal of architecture, urbanism, and cultural theory, will focus on the global forces of design and production, commerce and cultural identity that are shaping the disciplines of architecture and urbansim.

“Clearly the discipline of architecture struggles in articulating the cognitive connection between one’s identity and the aesthetic dimension of their spatial and urban environment,” says Milton Curry, associate professor of architecture and the journal’s editor in chief and chairman. “The journal will be a vehicle for creative work that examines this.”

CriticalProductive, institutionally supported partially through Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, and outside capital, has recently been awarded a $15,000 competitive production and presentation grant for publication from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, based in Chicago.

“We are grateful to the Graham Foundation for its support and its assertion that the journal will make an important contribution to the field of architecture,” says Curry. “This investment in CriticalProductive signifies a growing momentum and interest in the new journal and the excitement for new and emerging voices from a broad spectrum of sectors focused on theoretical discourse.”

Curry and his creative team and editorial board are at work on the first issue of CriticalProductive (v1.1: Theoretic Action) which will be published in summer 2009.AAP For further information contact Milton Curry at mcurry@criticalproductive.com.

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

26——Alumni News

Benson • Better • Piermarini • Pasnik • Yoon • Ho • Levesque • Cronin • Czigler • Fazio • Snadon • G Kates • Kim • Kramer • Kruse • Lipsky • Matta-Cla Meyer • Sadao • Sbrissa • Siena • Weiss • Wong •

• • •

News Ellen Altfest (B.F.A. ’93) presented a talk with Robert Storr as a part of the SkowheganTALKS series at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. The series features emerging artists who are recent Skowhegan alumni “interviewing” established artists and others who have been faculty at Skowhegan.

William Benson (B.F.A. ’72) led a workshop titled “Measuring and Proportion” during “A Sense of Drawing: Artists Teaching Artists,” a workshop series at Syracuse University held last spring. Benson reviewed the basic proportions of the human body as laid down over time, from the Greeks to the French Academy, to John Singer Sargent and George Bridgman. He then demonstrated how to proportion the body while looking and drawing, using techniques to keep adjusting the drawing correctly.

Ten young architecture and design firms collaborated on the creation of a prototype green wall in preparation for the arrival of over 25,000 visitors to Boston for the national convention of the American Institute of Architects in May. Six of the collaborators are AAP alumni, including Hansy Better (B.Arch. ’98) and Anthony Piermarini (B.Arch. ’97) of Studio Luz Architects; Mark Pasnik (B.Arch. ’94) of Over, Under; Meejin Yoon (B.Arch. ’95) and Eric Howeler (B.Arch. ’95, M.Arch. ’96) of Howeler + Yoon Architecture; and Tiffany Lin (B.Arch. ’00) of LinOldhamOffice.

“Rivers Deep,” a solo exhibition by James L. Buxton Jr. (B.F.A. ’82) was up this summer at the Greater New Britain Art Alliance’s Downtown Gallery in Connecticut. The show featured Buxton’s colorful three-dimensional works in wood as well as a number of his paintings.

Perry Chapman (B.Arch. ’64) received the 2008 Founders’ (Casey) Award of the Society of College and University Planning at the Society’s international conference in Montreal. The award, informally named in honor of the late Professor K. C. Parsons of Cornell, is given for outstanding achievement in advancing the theory and practice of higher education planning. Chapman was appointed last fall as a member of Cornell University’s Architectural Advisory Committee, chaired by Richard Meier.

HOLT Architects announced the appointment of Anton R. Christiansen (B.Arch. ’90) and Paul A. Levesque II (B.Arch. ’94) as principal associates. Christiansen serves as director of design and oversees all phases of project design, and Levesque is director of health care projects.

Robert Cronin (M.F.A. ’62) won first prize with his painting “Research” in a members’ show of the Washington Art Association in Washington Depot, Connecticut.

2007 Eidlitz Fellowship winner Anna Czigler (B.Arch. ’06) recently completed a booklet about her travels and her project Paradise Lost: Animating the Industrial Landscape. As her thesis, she asked “whether industrial landscapes can act similar to buildings in order to provide for a programmatically and structurally flexible place.

and l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Montpellier, France, under funding from the Franco-American Cultural Exchange Foundation for French-American Academic Partnerships.

Amy Kates (B.S. ’86, M.R.P. ’87) has published her second book, Designing Your Organization, coauthored with Jay Galbraith and published by Jossey-Bass (2007). Kates’s work structuring global corporations for the last 15 years builds on her education and experience as a city planner and urban designer. Her first book, Designing Dynamic Organizations (Amacom, 2002) is a best seller in the field.

Hannah Naomi Kim (B.F.A. ’07) had a solo show this summer in Windhoek, Namibia, at the Franco-Namibian Cultural Center, then moving 01 to the University of Namibia Visual Art Gallery.

She also recently launched her personal website, www.bitonality.com, where you can see recent I investigated the possibility of an urban identity through reuse of existing structures.” The trip had work, browse through old work, and also read about why she’s in Namibia. two parts: visiting sites that have developed from Meryl Kramer (B.Arch. ’87), founder of an industrial area to a new urban landscape in Greenport, New York-based firm Meryl Kramer Germany. While there, she compared the architectural strategies used there with the ones in my Architect, has been accredited as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) thesis project. The second part of the trip was to visit industrial areas that are abandoned and wait- Professional by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently ing for urban planning and architectural intervenannounced the appointment of Tom Kruse tions.

Michael W. Fazio (Ph.D. ’87) and Patrick A. (M.R.P. ’94) as program officer for the global Snadon (Ph.D. ’88) received the Hitchcock Award governance portion of the Democratic Practice program. As a member of the fund’s program from the Society of Architectural Historians for their book The Domestic Architecture of Benjamin staff, Kruse will manage the development and direction of the global governance grant-making, Henry Latrobe (Johns Hopkins University Press, including the formation of program objectives, 2006). The society recognized the book as a strategies, and initiatives. “measurable monumental work.”

Pat Lipsky (B.F.A. ’63) had her piece Cobalt, Peter Gerakaris (B.F.A. ’03) created a small exhibited at the National Academy Museum, series of unique etchings for “UNFRAMED,” a 183rd Annual: “An Invitational Exhibition of benefit show curated by Beth Rudin DeWoody at Contemporary American Art,” from May 29 to Charles Cowles Gallery in New York City in the September 7. spring.

A retrospective of the work of Gordon “Crescendo,” a new installation at Northside Matta-Clark (B.Arch. ’66) was featured at the Piers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, by Mark Gibian Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The (B.F.A. ’77) is an eight-ton structure made of retrospective celebrated the brilliance and radical stainless steel. nature of his work in various media: sculptural Peter Hedlund (M.R.P./M.L.A ’00) has been elected a principal of Sasaki Associates and head objects (most, notably, from building cuts), of the landscape architecture discipline. Hedlund’s drawings, films, photographs, notebooks, and documentary materials. The exhibit was organized professional focus includes master planning,

by Whitney Museum of American Art and curated landscape design, and built work for education,

by Elisabeth Sussman. commercial, and public landscape spaces.

The American Association of Museums has Rachel Hyman (M.R.P. ’96) has been awarded The Terrible Captain Jack Visits the appointed chief operating officer of Habitat Museum or A Guide to Museum Manners for for Humanity in New York City. Hyman is an Incorrigible Pirates and the Like second prize for affordable housing banker with expertise books in its annual Museum Publications Design in housing finance; she has led economic Competition. Diane Matyas (B.F.A. ’84, M.F.A. revitalization projects around New York state. ’88) wrote and illustrated the book, which was Harvey M. Jacobs (M.R.P. ’81, Ph.D. ’84) published by the Noble Maritime Collection. was “knighted” by the French government As an artist painting and drawing musicians by being awarded an L’Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Order of the Academic Palms), rank and performers in concert, Madeleine Meehan (B.F.A. ’63) was invited to exhibit her aquarelle chevalier (knight). Jacobs was recognized for his coleadership of the project “Environmental Policy, works of the Orquestra Sinfonica de Puerto Rico at their new conservatory and in conjunction with Land Use, and Conservation Biology in FrancoAmerican Perspective,” conducted collaboratively the 50th anniversary of the orchestra.

Alex Mergold, AIA (B.Arch. ’00) and Jason between the University of Wisconsin–Madison Austin (B.Arch. ’00) recently established Austin + Mergold LLC, an architecture, design, and landscape bureau. Their website can be seen at www.austin-mergold.com.

Elizabeth Meyer (M.Arch. ’83), an associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Virginia, recently lectured about sustainable landscape design at the University of Tennessee. In her lecture, Meyer argued that landscapes must be designed to provoke people to become more aware of how their actions affect the environment, and to care enough to make changes.

Shoji Sadao (B.Arch.’54) recently visited the Religious Center at Southern Illinois University– Edwardsville for the first time since it opened in 1971. Sadao, who worked on the Religious Center The Galician Library and Newspaper Archive (foreground) are two of the six buildings that comprise the City of Culture of Galicia now in construction on a hilltop overlooking Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Designed by Eisenman Architects in New York City (Peter Eisenman [B.Arch. ’55]), the cultural campus will become a secular attraction in this religious pilgrimage city when the new libraries, theater, and museums begin opening in 2009. Its design stems from the overlay of the medieval city’s pilgrimage routes and a modern Cartesian grid on the natural topography, resulting in undulating buildings that appear one with the hilltop itself.

with R. Buckminster Fuller, also codesigned the geodesic dome structure with Fuller. His book, Best of Friends: Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi was published in June.

Claudia Sbrissa (M.F.A. ’02) was recently in a group show called The Persistence of Line at Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn.

In the spring, James Siena (B.F.A. ’79) had his second solo exhibition at PaceWildenstein gallery. The show included approximately 20 enamel paintings on aluminum or copper and 60 works on paper created with mixed media, including ink, graphite, gouache, color pencil, and Conté crayon on paper or board.

Laura Weiss (B.Arch. ’86) has been named President of Kao & Company, the San Franciscobased consulting arm of John Kao’s innovation advisory/nonprofit/venture development organization. Kao is one of the most respected experts on innovation strategy, and the firm has been sought out by organizations in both the private and public sectors. Prior to joining Kao & Company, Weiss spent nine years with worldrenowned design consultancy IDEO in a variety of leadership positions.

Artist Kacey Wong (B.F.A. ’93 ) was recently featured in a South China Morning Post story about his “Drifting Thoughts” sculpture and installation show at the Goethe-Institut Hong Kong.

McKinney Architects received the Grand Award as part of Remodeling magazine’s 2008 Remodeling Design Awards for its Constant Springs kitchen remodel. Firm principal Al York (M.Arch. ’93) designed the bright and dynamic space for a busy household of five. Constant Springs was previously awarded a Citation of Honor from AIA Austin.AAP

Jill Lerner (B.Arch. ’76), of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, served as principal-in-charge of the recent project for the Chapman Graduate School of Business at Florida International University. The building is designed to create a dramatic statement for the business school, with a prominent “prow” at the entry to the complex; it features an exterior quadrangle utilizing colors and design elements that evoke Miami’s link to South America and Latin America. The design addresses the hot Miami climate through the building orientation, window patterns, arcades, sunscreens, and landscape. The project garnered one of the 66 American Architecture Awards from the Chicago Atheneum Museum of Architecture and Design. The building also received a 2008 Merit Award in the higher education category of the Florida Facilities Planning Association award program.

oweler • Lin • Buxton • Chapman • Christiansen Gerakaris • Gibian • Hedlund • Hyman • Jacobs ark • Matyas • Meehan • MergoldAustin • • York

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YOUNG ALUMNI RECOGNIZED IN RECENT COMPETITIONS

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Bradford Perkins (B.A. ’65), cofounder and chairman of Perkins Eastman, recently published his fifth book, International Practice for Architects, for the AIA and publisher John Wiley & Sons. The book, which details how to launch an international design practice is, in part, based on his and his 850-person architectural, interior design, and planning firm’s experience in more than 30 countries around the world.

When designing the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, James Biber (B.Arch. ’76), a partner at Pentagram, looked to grab as much newly crafted urban context as 130,000 quare feet possibly can. Three linked buildings in the reclaimed industrial valley site define a cruciform street space that is part cathedral, part galleria, and all rugged industrial fare. The point is to promote the spontaneous rally atmosphere that bikers crave, while positing a “museum on the street” counterpart to the story told inside. The reduced material palette of black glazed brick, galvanized steel, and corrugated orange panels connect the buildings into a factory-like whole, while formal differences signal the hierarchy at play. Other alumni on the Pentagram project team included Michael Zweck-Bronner (B.Arch. ’86), Aleksander Mergold (B.Arch. ’99), Daniel Maxfield (B.Arch. ’00), and James Bowman.

A few recent alumni of Cornell’s undergraduate architecture program are garnering some welcomed recognition— some of it for work that was started while they were still students.

Reilly Hogan (B.S. ’08), Aidi Su (B.Arch. ’07), and Kaz Yoneda (B.Arch. ’07) were among the winners of the 2008 Output Foundation competition and had their project “Arc over Golden Gate” published in output 11. The project originated in Mark Cruvellier’s bridge design class.

“The Bridge Design course provides a unique opportunity for students to explore the interplay between conceptual ideas and structural innovations; Kaz, Aidi, and Reilly took this opportunity to heart in creating the design for a landmark bridge/ observation platform atop the twin peaks of San Francisco,” says Cruvellier, professor and architecture chair. “Their work for this project not only represents well the creativity of students who have taken this course in the past, but also speaks more broadly to the benefit of having architects more integrally involved in the design of bridges—perhaps one of the most common but also ignored examples of public art/works that one can think of.”

Yoneda’s thesis “Enigmas of Firmament: Center for Cosmology at Mauna Kea” was also a winner in Output’s competition. Additionally, Yoneda, now at Sou Fujimoto Architects in Tokyo, received second prize in the 2008 Future of Design Competition sponsored by the Boston Society of Architects (BSA). The project was featured in a video at the BSA gallery at the Residential Design and Construction Convention and Tradeshow (RDC) in Boston in April. The project will also be included in the January/February 2009 design awards issue of the BSA’s bimonthly ideas magazine, ArchitectureBoston.

EVENT HONORS TWO DEDICATED CORNELLIANS— EARL AND POLLY FLANSBURGH A wonderful party honoring a pair of great Cornellians was held last spring. Earl R. Flansburgh (B.Arch. ’54) served as a Cornell University trustee for 15 years, designed the Cornell Store and the Builder’s Wall, and, with his wife Louise “Polly” Flansburgh, continues to give generously of time and money to support Cornell. In May, the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) honored the Flansburghs for all they have done for the university.

About 85 friends gathered at the Flansburgh’s home in Lincoln, Massachusetts, welcomed by W. Stanley Taft, then-interim dean of AAP. Guests included Porus D. Olpadwala, dean of AAP from 1999 to 2004, David C. Knapp, Cornell provost from 1974 to 1978, and President Emeritus Frank H. T. Rhodes.

In his talk at the event, Rhodes recalled that Mr. Flansburgh was actually part of a trustee group that interviewed him for the Cornell presidency. “In a lapsed moment, he gave me the job,” Rhodes deadpanned. Mr. Flansburgh was one of the first architects to serve as trustee, Rhodes said, and “his expertise and counsel were simply invaluable.”

“I would like to give special thanks to Polly as well,” Rhodes said, “for her dedication as an alumna in her own right and for her support over the years of the many ways Earl has devoted time and energy to Cornell. The Flansburghs have more Cornell connections than almost any family I can think of. Both their fathers were Cornell professors, and Mrs. Flansburgh’s greatgrandfather, Dr. Tarbell, was a member of Cornell’s first graduating class in 1869. Earl and Polly’s son Schuyler, along with a cousin, are the first-ever fifth-generation Cornellians.

“However,” Rhodes continued, “[all those Cornell associations] could never guarantee in anyone the kind of dedication that Earl and Polly have shown to Cornell. That kind of loyalty and generosity must come from deep inside a person’s true nature.”

David Sheffield (’55, B.Arch. ’60, M.R.P. ’61), followed Rhodes’s speech with some trepidation, joking that speaking after Rhodes was terrifying. But, he said, “friendship trumps terror; I’d do anything for Earl.”

In 1963, Mr. Flansburgh founded his own firm, Earl R. Flansburgh & Associates, and, said Sheffield, “soon, everybody knew his name.”

Sheffield added, “[Earl is] a great friend, a great architect, a great husband, a great father, a great Cornellian, and a great guy.”

Earl R. Flansburgh served as a university trustee from 1972 to 1987, and was then recognized as a Cornell University Trustee Emeritus in 1987. For many years he was chair of the trustees’ buildings and properties committee.

In 1982, he chaired the committee that developed Cornell’s Foremost Benefactor Program, and he personally designed the Builder’s Wall to honor those benefactors.

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Earl and Polly Flansburgh have been married for over 50 years. They have two sons, John Conant Flansburgh and Earl “Schuyler” Flansburgh ’79.

Earl R. Flansburgh & Associates designed the Campus Store, which was built in the late 1960s. In January 1969, Progressive Architecture selected the store for one of its prestigious design awards.

Mr. Flansburgh represented the university as an official delegate at several university presidential inaugurations in the Boston area.

The Flansburghs have also been very involved with Cornell’s Young Alumni Committees in the Ithaca area, and later in Boston.

At the height of his busy career, Mr. Flansburgh returned to campus several times a year to give portfolio workshops for the benefit of architecture students.

The Flansburghs’ generous financial support includes the Earl R. Flansburgh Campaign Recognition Scholarship the Earl R. and Louise H. Flansburgh Dean’s Discretionary Fund in AAP.AAP

01 Mark Gibian’s “Crescendo” at Northside Piers. Photo courtesy the New York Sun. 02 Reilly Hogan, Aidi Su, and Kaz Yoneda’s “Arc over Golden Gate.”

03 Anna Czigler (B.Arch. ’06).

04 Earl Flansburgh. Credit: William Staffeld.

05 Polly Flansburgh in front of a piece by her husband, Earl. She purchased the work at an auction and gave it as a gift to her husband. Credit: William Staffeld.

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Designed by FXFOWLE Architects, the Oculus Condominium is situated at the nexus of the Flatiron District, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and Union Square in New York City. The new building features 47 residences on 10 floors, including four exclusive penthouses. Twentyone of the 47 residences feature outdoor space.

The building’s façade features a “floating veil” of terracotta bands that maintains a consistent backdrop for the streetscape, while a windowwall behind adds visual depth. The undulating expression of the wall corresponds to the internal organization of the studios, one-, twoand three-bedroom units. Dan Kaplan (B.Arch. ’84) a senior partner at FXFOWLE Architects served as the lead designer on the project.

Stefan Dallendorger (M.Arch. ’94), a senior associate at FXFOWLE Architects, is the project architect and Gerald Davis (B.Arch. ’84) from Alchemy Properties is the developer.

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

28—Kent Kleinman ••Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of Architecture, Art, and Planning Before joining Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning on September 1, 2008, Kent Kleinman was Professor and Dean of the School of Constructed Environments at Parsons, The New School of Design. He received his professional degree in architecture from the University of California–Berkeley. His scholarly focus is twentieth-century European Modernism, and his publications include Villa Müller: A Work of Adolf Loos; Rudolf Arnheim: Revealing Vision; and Mies van der Rohe: The Krefeld Villas, as well as articles and reviews in national and international publications including Bauwelt, Progressive Architecture, A+U, Bauart, Archis, and the Architects’ Journal.

Kleinman has taught at architecture schools internationally including the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, the Hochschule der Künst in Berlin, the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, and the ETH in Zürich. He was a faculty member at the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1999, and professor and chair of Architecture at the State University of New York, Buffalo, from 1999 to 2005.

He was awarded the Senior Public Goods Fellow (Mellon Foundation) at the University of Michigan in 2002, and was a visiting scholar at the Canadian Center for Architecture in 2005.

He has received four Graham Foundation grants; the national Bruner Prize; two Architects’ Journal 10 Best Books awards; first alternate award for the Burnham Prize; a New York Council on the Arts grant; and a 2001 Progressive Architecture Design Award (with Eric Sutherland). Kleinman is a registered architect in California.AAP

Credit: William Staffeld

CORNELL architecture•art••planning NEWS 05——fall2008

CORNELLUNIVERSITY COLLEGEof—ARCHITECTURE—— ART—PLANNING 129 SIBLEY DOME ITHACA, NY 14853–6701 aap.cornell.edu