F I E L DWO R K
Two-Way Street Taller Ken may be a young firm, but the international architecture studio is already directly investing in the next generation of designers. By RACHEL GALLAHER
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GRAY
ARCHITECTS INÉS GUZMÁN MENDEZ AND GREGORY KAHN MELITONOV, founders of the international firm Taller Ken, met in 2010 while both were working at the Genoa office of Pritzker Prize–winning architect Renzo Piano. As members of the architectural design team for the Whitney Museum of American Art and the headquarters building for the High Line, Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov had more than enough work and travel to fill their days, but despite their involvement in some of the world’s most renowned architectural projects of the time, the duo wanted something more. Gathering a group of young employees from Piano’s office, they planned an artistic intervention in an area of Genoa
that Melitonov describes as “forgotten, with a bridge that was a bit of urban blight.” The group strung a laundry line under an elevated highway overpass and hung it with nearly 500 hand-painted T-shirts. It was a simple installation, but it touched on multiple ideas that interested Guzmán Mendez and Melitonov, from community and collaboration to ways that design can stimulate wide cultural conversations. “A lot of people have an interest in architecture but don’t have an easy access point to it,” Melitonov says. “They see it as something very high-end that requires a lot of money and knowledge to access or understand. We try to provide a way for people to participate in the discussion, to layer more voices into and
MARCELO GUITTEREZ
POWER
Playa Chomo, the first project by Taller Ken’s FUNdaMENTAL Design Build Initiative, was a temporary installation in the center of Guatemala City.
