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! A R K A R K ! ! K A R K P P I A P P I A I PA P I A FOLD ISSUE23

ISSUE EDITOR EDITORS

Dante Furioso Dante Furioso Nicolas Kemper Andrew Sternad COORDINATING EDITOR GRAPHICS Nicolas Kemper Jiyoni Kim

GRAPHIC DESIGN Jiyoni Kim

G PAGE

THE OPENING PAGE

on boundStill firmly a student to our run and written publication bound firmly to our ferent issue present editor andorour team place, each week a different issue editor or team hting work of editors timely... will curate its content, highlighting work timely... between students of architecture and graphic design, the second broadsheet of community. our independent, journal sheet the topical work, to thoughts our Find onstudent-run this sheet the work, highlights thoughts a unique interdisciplinary at forty Yale. students, Each week, freshtogether content...and original s, coming andtogether observations ... project of some coming

A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT

design coincide with our Thursday night lecture, a staple of the school’s discourse and social life.

ON THE GROUND

ON THE GROUND APRIL 1

project’s most significant critics. The Iraq York, to collective housing experiments presented a sample of her work at the presented a sample of her work at the ve housing experiments Development Board visited the National Arts Library Special Collections, including Arts Library Special Collections, including olombia. Commenting on in Facatativa, Colombia. Commenting on in London and uncovered some the arc 1 a 704-page 1.5 x 2 x 1 terdisciplinary work, Riano a 704-page book measuring 1.5 x 2 x Archives of his interdisciplinary work, Riano about intentionality (“over-rated”), originality (King, book measuring DEAN SEARCH confidential and secret correspondences said, “I“inteach inches, and discussed a range of historic eople to use design as an people to use design and, as anwell, inches, the land of know nothings”) diptychs.and discussed a range of historic “She wanted the life that was worksto atstage the Beinecke Rare Book andbetween key characters in the narrative. works at the Beinecke Rare Book and s such, he asserted, “To activist tool.” As such, he asserted, “To already Manuscript there,” saidLibrary, Washington University including Giovanni Manuscript Library, Nicolas including Giovanni gn work is to understand do political design work is to understand APRIL 7 Kemper in St. Louis Associate Professor ZEULER “You asked me what I like. Well I like Balbi’s Catholicon from 1460. Organized Balbi’s Catholicon from 1460. Organized ecarious worker.” With yourself as a precarious worker.” With LIMA ofby Lina Bocandidate Bardi, theKYLE subject of his places where there are 4 Starbucks within this, Riano concluded his presentation PhD DUGDALE, by PhD candidate KYLE DUGDALE, cluded his presentation “Some of our peer institutions have taken the published around biography, project 15 flyers a block from my house, I like to go to the advertised the aschool with around the school with flyers n of labor, appealing recently to with aDRAWING discussion of labor,abandoned appealing to PROJECTS the A+A advertised Building opportunity of the search to self-destruct,” said Keller years inthat the making which he with bymuseums, and I can’t live somewhere that the advocacy read “Boom,” andshared sponsored that read “Boom,” and sponsored by f The Architecture Lobby. of The Architecture Lobby. and headed across the street to the art gallery, Easterling, chair of the Dean Selection Committee, as the PhDAndrew forum. At doesn’t have an opera. That’s my choice.” A spirited W.dinner Mellonafterwards Fellowship he of Scholars Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship Scholars ersation followed, which conversation followed, which where LUCY GELLMAN from the gallery arranged she and its of other members – Michelle Addington, Steven shared ainproject hours in the making: Critical1.5 Bibliography and the PhD -Alex Garvin Critical Bibliography andJohn the Jacobson, PhD o to reflect on the role prompted reflect onTurner the role someRiano twentytoimages and selected in a number Harris, and Bimal Mendis, sat, solicited a continuous panorama of the Dialogue Series, sketch the “Architecture of “Architecture of on Bob’s successor, and explained in social, political, and of architecture in social, of works from Picassopolitical, to Seuratand to Gorky Dialogue to Goya, Series, thestudents’ thoughts ride from New York to New the Book” workshop invited studentsA Tuesday evening panel in the fourth the Book” workshophow invited esses: “I don’t believeMetro in North economic processes: don’t believe in whose etchings he“Idescribed as “dancing in some they students would break the pattern. Haven. After all, for Lima,as“history a floor pit moderated by Lecturer to discuss books design is objects and to discuss books as design objects andallowed that “We are seeing this as . “I believe in constant utopia,” he said. “Iworld.” believe in constant hallucinatory While she conception of the present storehouses of information. Among RYAN SALVATORE with Professor Adjunct revolution.” storehouses of information. AmongKeller pointed out that in many respects a new chapter,” ALEX GARVIN, ALEX BARRETT, and Boom’s many reflections on the many reflections on the ALEXANDER PURVES (’58, March ’65) and Boom’s JULES DAVID the school has never been in a better position, and the BEN BISCHOFF focused on alternative importance of books, she agrees with importance of books, she agrees with PROWN, the first director of the Center for British committee does not plan on “throwing out the baby with Koolhaas that “a book is a container modes that of practice: well actually just Koolhaas that “a book a container Art, discussed Louis Kahn and his design philosophy theis bath water.” that residential development and real-estate. tells a story about a building.” tells in a story about a building.”President Salovey will ultimately make the for the museum during Kahn in Conversation, Acknowledging the difficulty of getting Hastings Hall. PROWN, as Kahn’s client for the project, choice, the committee only advises. Indeed in 1998 Six young 2nd Year whippersnappers MArch What can be a sacred space today when the whole warmlyfrom flooded “If I light told Richard it was a the diptych, into the business as recent YSOA grads— I told a diptych, sible when you have As morning “Anything’s possible when you have established a requirement for daylight and“Ifthe ideaRichard it was President Levin chose Robert Stern against the advice I represented YSOA at the 2015 LIXIL International world has become, de facto, a sacred space that is floor pit, say Professor Adjunct PETER that said installations have to “work against the say it is a diptych” finding investors, achieving trust with would it is a diptych” he would PETER Salovey, who we expect to be more Graham Foundation seventhhe nothing,” Grahamwould Foundation of its predecessor. University Architectural Competition, the first stage constantly scripted and ritualized? And, how can we TURNEREISENMAN BROOKS and reviewer architecture of rooms.” Later, when askedEISENMAN what the told his seminar investors, and “doing everything wrong toldguest his seminar after after HERDA in her Thursday Director SARAH HERDA in her Thursday deferential, asked for a candidate committed to the of which concluded on March 19th. Organized and reclaim a distinction between sacred and profane MFAa‘96, evaluated building would look like, Kahn replied, sunny day that a fellow until you get it right”—they advised us recounting that fellow member of his member . Entitled “A DifferentLEVNI Kind SINANOGLU, evening lecture. Entitled “A Different Kind“onrecounting profession and of thehis academy. Keller shared they want one funded by the LIXIL Corporation in conjunction with through architecture? the drawings of twelve bleary-eyed like a butterfly, onlecture cloudy day like a moth.” Later in quintych insisted to just jump in, even if we lose we have. New York quintych insisted he had never New York he good had never erda’s lecture explained of Architect,” Herda’s explained who will be at fundraising and has “a track record,” Kengo Kuma, 12 student teams from architecture the conversation, Purves admitted to climbing around students. Sinanoglu challenged emphasizing that the committee sees the exercise as What do they look for in hires? For designed such a thing. the designed such a thing. crappy organizations such the virtues of scrappy organizations such schools around the world competed for the top ALAN PLATTUS told the first years in urban planning Rudolph’s A&A the building while under stocktaking, a chance to ask “How do we prepare people Garvin: honesty. For Barrett and Bischoff: as Storefront New York versus the students to “transform the material--to insculpture-like New York versus prize of US$15,000 and the chance to see their that when he was a student at Princeton, the dean construction. create more possibilities for meaning.” who we graduate to become leaders in the profession?” admitting what you know and don’t know. decidedly “He did it in 10 seconds, it took us years “He did it in 10 seconds, it took us years r endowed, if sometimes better endowed, if sometimes design realized on the Memu Meadows “experimental of the university was made aware that architects onesaid student For usKEVIN the exercise must remain intellectual. Asked about the value of an architectural less limber, Graham Foundation. The to get that there,” guestattempt lecturer KEVIN to get there,” said guest lecturer ham Foundation. TheHe suggested building ranch” on the east coast of Hokkaido, Japan. are compensated much less than what people APRIL 8 with a pitch for this fall’s announcement (by this fall) there never will be to visually captureof“the buzz”Renzo in thePiano, air as license for the non practicing architect, SCHORN his boss SCHORN of his bossBefore Renzothe Piano, as with a pitch for this fall’s talk culminated This year’s brief called for a “House for Enjoying the tend to believe. Subsequently, the dean made an official list, as “Speculation is the fastest way to lose like the oppressive “pulsing of cicadas” year Systems al, like Venice’s but free of he walked the second year Systems Garvin replied: none. Chicago Biennial, like Venice’s but free of he walked the second Harsh Cold”, an innovative design solution to rethink architecture school tuition mostly subsidized. The good candidates.” From thethrough paintings of16,000Integration class the the 16,000are taking the stanceduring that summer. the theme: “We are taking the stance that Integration class through the way dwellings in Hokkaido are constructed and charge for students at Yale today is to make the issue In books, IRMA BOOM introduced EXPANDodd - anshop drawings for the new Certainly the new Dean will have latitude to Henri Michaux anddrawings Clyford for Stillthe to Paul odd shop new Whitney Whitney ecision maker.” everyone is a decision maker.” experienced. Alas, fortune conspired against the team of architect’s compensation and the high cost of experiment to increase two books beyond their implement an agenda: Keller revealed that Bob has held Auster’sMuseum. detectiveThe novels, The New York the detailing constituted Museum. The detailing constituted the from Yale and they did not make it to the finals. education paramount, not only within the search for original dimensions, bothtook literally and figuratively, by off on filling open faculty positions, so the next Dean will Levniconsultant mentioned some $30 meat ofand facade Gartner’s meat of facade consultant Gartner’s $30 cture, Herda took flakTrilogy, for Turner Following the lecture, Herda flak for the new dean of the architecture school, but also with adding documentation (images and texts). be able to go on a hiring spree. 40 artists and authors as precedents in hit administration at Yale. mall, but numerous, the Graham’s small, but numerous, grants. million contract, helped the building hit APRIL 1 grants. million contract, helped the building the larger tag, andThere were a few themes among the the spanitsof$450 two hours. millionTheir priceenthusiasm tag, and will leave its $450 million price will leave Assistant Professor of Art History CRAIG .M. STERN commented, Dean ROBERT A.M. STERN commented, APRIL 9 but there’s a zero missing,” the southern end ofcomments: 1) We want more opportunities for student and descriptors — “gauzy… the southern end ofshimmering… the Highline “Does withBUCKLEY’s the Highline with seminar began with the timebut there’s a zero missing,” “Sarah’s great, Justin Bieber even have a typical front porch?” leadership, with smaller and more numerous grants, flesh-suitcase… Victorian… crackling… a building akin to a finely crafted if a building akin to a finely crafted if image relationship of Deleuze’s Cinema djunct DEBORAH BERKE and Professor Adjunct DEBORAH BERKE “I’ve looked at architects who are not part of the asked MADELYNN RINGO (M.Arch I ‘16), in a discussion more support- for student organizations, and, well, lunch. preciousness...footness a who foot’’— - yacht. somewhathistory, oddly of proportioned yacht. the idea of the cinema of the brainspace- asked, “Do you really think that a $10,000 somewhat oddly proportioned really think thatofa modern $10,000 canon architectural but of a2; classmate’s proposal for a new private Undergraduate senior societies will be initiating new 2) We want a more porous institution: students asked for brought a refreshing and uncommon suggests notduring one shot afterEASTERLING’S another, butclassgrant is meaningful in 2015?” Herda gful in 2015?” Herda have made a large impact on public life,” sharing nonetheless platform KELLER members tonight, once moreciting putting the TIM doors ITHIEL a study abroad exchange program, firms from outside character to the review. TIM NEWTON, Critic and Shop Manager, NEWTON, Critic and Shop Manager, one shot plus another; and, the spectator ergetic defense, citing launched an energetic defense, said MEREDITH TENHOOR to the M.E.D. Colloquium, “Launch: Architecture and Entrepreneurialism”. TOWN’s (MA 1825) design lent at 64to High Streettold to work. New York, and more told and his class THEPhillippe, CHAIR to “provide becomes a his class THE CHAIR to “provide a ties to Latin America. 3) We want to the “seer.” ation support lent toHenri Colboc Graham Foundation support mentioning Georges see a stronger sense Visiting Assistant Professor daily of work plan for the next four weeks,” daily work plan for the next four weeks,”of social responsibility, with more of QUILIAN RIANO,is founder of the DSGN AGNC ber and YSOA Director the two primary designers the modern, food“The office culture not one of things I came audience member and YSOA Director NOTES FROM THE UNDERGRAD anwork emphasis ecology, TODD of REISZ’s seminar, a class divided but once inRungis class the work plans are cast but once in class the planson are cast a larger acceptance of regional based in Brooklyn, joined theJEANNE M.E.D. GANG of Exhibitions ALFIE KOETTER’s journal LFIE KOETTER’s journal distribution system Marché de in the 1960s away wanting to replicate,” replied architecture as a worthwhile career, 4) Students want into three research groups preparing aside. Newton’s exclamations incite terror aside. Newton’s exclamations incite terror Contemporary Architectural Discourse and 1970s. Moving to Michel Foucault, bio-politics, to SAM KING’S (M.Arch I ‘17) question about OMA’s PROJECT. more research opportunities and a reinstated thesis. articles on the Iraq Development Board, about the status of certain projects. about the status of certain projects. Colloquium to discuss his work in and the monetization of life, she said, “If Delueze legendarily “hellish” office culture. Neither does “It’s less like sentences and more like a laser show” There The Cities Saudi Arabia, andare Materials areof discussed. Details Materials are discussed. Details arewas some disagreement as to whether relation to Chicago the colloquium theme,acknowledged “Minor has taught me anyIndustrial one lesson, especially in his later RAMSA look to for its models, -- BOBBY DE LA ROSA, BA Arch ‘15, on his project the Dean should have a practice. SAMANTHA JAFF The Rahad Project in Sudan forROBERT Some are tested. reviewed. Some mockups are tested. Architecture.” In every his presentation, work of Postscript onreviewed. theIrrigation Societies andmockups Control, it’s STERN: “Not office is based on martinis statement. “I feel like a hairball that a cat threw up.” (M.Arch ‘16) floated the idea of a full time Dean, and publication inKARIMPOUR theand next issue of Portal AMIR (MArch II ‘15)9,is –half AMIR KARIMPOUR (MArch II ‘15) is half “Negotiating Visualize, Organize, that nothing can remain minor, that in the logic she takes them Polis: camping. I decided not to adopt that -- everyone, on Sunday. ADAM WAGONER saying that while we do not need to hire went investigative over spring break. The finished and worried about the depth of finished and worried about the depth of Act,” Riano highlighted the social, of capitalism what’s minor and avant-garde largely model.” “the head of HOK (M.Arch & Urban Design U. Illinois ’67 Industrial Cities team went to Boston and his seat. MEGHAN McALLISTER (MArch I his seat. MEGHAN McALLISTER (MArch I prolific Dutch designer and IRMA BOOM, a prolific Dutch designer and political, and economic conditions that becomes a testing-ground for what will eventually be CORRECTIONS PATRICK MACLEAMY),” he does want “someone involved a scholar on the topic. Thewebbing. ‘15) capitalism.” tests out some new canvas ‘15) tests out some new canvas webbing. long timeabsorbed collaborator Rem Koolhaas’s long time collaborator informed his featured projects, which intointerviewed consumer in making things, for to think deeply and make physical got in touch with Ione the the STANLEY CHO (MArch ‘15) of reviews STANLEY CHO (MArch I ‘15) reviews the ds, “bookmaker”— Rahad team ranged from game design in Queens, New and —in his words, “bookmaker”—

APRIL 2

APRIL 4

APRIL 3

APRIL 6

APRIL 2 APRIL 3 In “Rituals and Walls: Notes on the Architecture of Sacred Space,” PIER VITTORIO AURELI joined KARLA BRITTON’s seminar to pose two critical questions:

A NNE M O N Y

In the last issue we swapped the pictures attached with the building projects of LAURA MEADE (M.Arch I ‘17) and WES HIATT (M.Arch I ‘17). We also forgot to include the name of LUCAS BOYD (M.Arch I ‘17) on house D.

objects, I hope it will always be part of the school” EUGENE TAN (M.Arch ‘16) asked for a dean engaged with and savvy in social media, who could get student work more exposure. Said Keller, “I am going to guess that almost any candidate will be savvier with social media.”

LISA ALBAUGH + SAMANTHA JAFF M.ARCH I ‘16

lux IDEAS THROUGH LIGHT

Lux: Ideas through Light, a series of nightly projections organized by Yale College, will be held at Beinecke Plaza from 8 pm to 10 pm Friday, April 10, 2015 to Sunday, April 12, 2015. The event will showcase students’ original visualizations of reseach projects from multiple disciplines at Yale. Opening tomorrow, the event celebrates the medium of projection and its capacity to disseminate and reformulate ideas through a visual medium at an architectur-

al scale. The event will bring our community together around one of the University’s most iconic buildings dedicated to scholarship and research to view a series of unusual, collaborative projection projects. Students from the School of Architecture submitted six pieces, featured here as a preview.

NIGHTLY

HAELEE JUNG & MELODY SONG M.ARCH I ‘15

APRIL 10-12TH 8-10PM

BEINECKE PLAZA

For more details vistit the event’s official website: http://beinecke.

BORIS MORIN-DEFOY M.ARCH I ‘16

DIONYSUS CHO M.ARCH I ‘15

DIONYSIS CHO M.ARCH I ‘15

SUSAN WANG M.ARCH I ‘16

JOHN KLEINSCHMIDT & ANDREW STERNAD M.ARCH I ‘16

LISA ALBAUGH + SAMANTHA JAFF M.ARCH I ‘16

lux IDEAS THROUGH LIGHT

NIGHTLY

HAELEE JUNG & MELODY SONG M.ARCH I ‘15

APRIL 10-12TH 8-10PM

BEINECKE PLAZA

For more details vistit the event’s official website: http://beinecke.

BORIS MORIN-DEFOY M.ARCH I ‘16

DIONYSUS CHO M.ARCH I ‘15

DIONYSIS CHO M.ARCH I ‘15

SUSAN WANG M.ARCH I ‘16

JOHN KLEINSCHMIDT & ANDREW STERNAD M.ARCH I ‘16

Correspondents

2.5 DIMENSIONS

3 TABLES - 9 SITES

Luis Salas Porras (M.Arch I ‘16)

Daniel Glick-Unterman (M.Arch I ‘17)

These works are part of a series of photographs and models collapsing the distinction between image and object. In this 2.5-dimensional space construction, projection, and reflection come into one, creating spatial configurations that dissolve the physical boundaries of discrete media.

Bringing a table to the review and bringing the review to a table.

READING LIST

Professor Alan Plattus’s current bedside reading includes “A Peace to End all Peace,” about the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the mess that the Western powers created in the Middle East during and after World War I, and “Perdido Street Station,” a sci-fi/fantasy novel by China Mieville, about a dark, dense and richly described dystopian city, called New Crobuzon, and the hybrid creatures that inhabit it. Ethan Judd Fischer, has returned home from late nights at studio to The Shipping News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx, published in 1993. The novel is about a single dad named Quoyle who moves from Upstate New York to his ancestral home in Newfoundland after a series of life changing events - his parents’ double suicide, the loss of his job, and the death of his two-timing, “Demon Lover” wife, who burns up in a car crash after attempting to sell their two daughters to a child trafficker and running off with a neighbor. Life doesn’t get much easier for Quoyle in the storm-battered town of Killick-Claw, where he finds work at the local paper covering car accidents and the daily shipping news. Nonetheless, Proulx manages to bring humor to life’s most tragic episodes, a necessary skill if one is to survive the harsh Newfie winters. Or a semester in Rudolph Hall. Kyle Dugdale has mainly been reading Yale University’s archaic dissertation formatting guide, which does not make for good review copy, despite being quite entertaining:“Color photographs should be avoided because of their impermanence and because they do not reproduce in color on microfilm. Only good quality commercial paste, dry-mounted tissues ironed on, or adhesive sheets should be used for mounting; these are available in many art supply stores. Rubber cements, cellophane or gummed tapes, photographic corners and acetate pockets are not acceptable.” He has started various other books, but none worth commenting on just yet.

INTERVIEW

Keller Easterling April 7th 2015 By Samantha Jaff & Shayari de Silva (M.Arch I ‘15) SJ: Nine students from the School of Architecture will be contributing their work to the Lux installation this weekend. What do you make of the fact that so many architecture students are participating? KE: Well, I’m really pleased. We keep talking about the new shape of architecture practice. And that often involves a kind of collaboration, perseverance, and willingness to be more entrepreneurial or make the space in which you will work. The Lux project is a really good rehearsal for that… or not a rehearsal—this is happening! Your career has already started. Rather than being a student and waiting to be taught, you are using the institution and each other as collaborators. Sometimes, there is, in our architecture education, the suggestion that you’re supposed to hold back and wait until you’re 50 to actually do something. It’s a complete fallacy. It’s right up there with staying up late. So, this is a little glimmer of the kind of work that needs to be done. SdeS: Do you think that temporary public installations are perhaps gaining more traction in urbanism than say permanent, monumental interventions? KE: Well, I’ve been pretty vocal about the fact that I don’t want to see the kinds of urban interventions I’m talking about miniaturized in the gallery. Or, at least, I am not satisfied that that’s the end product—that to show some of these urban protocols as a kind of gallery performance is sufficient. I don’t think it’s sufficient. And in fact sometimes I’ve resisted putting things in the gallery because I want it in the real world, you know? SJ: And do you feel that they’re mutually exclusive? If it goes into the gallery, it has less of a chance of making it into the real world? KE: No, I think one just has to insist on both: finding ways in which the gallery can be part of a persuasion that makes an idea contagious in the wide world and angling it for that purpose. The gallery is not the end for us, as architects. For artists, it might be. But for us, maybe we have a more exciting, but also a more difficult potential scope of work… I find that thrilling, so I don’t want to back away from it or miniaturize it. SJ: How do you see the perception of time changing in urbanism, and what might be the implications of that? KE: Well, I’ve been arguing that in addition to the object forms we make, the active forms just have a different set of aesthetic pleasures. One of those aesthetic pleasures involves watching form unfold in time. You get accustomed to it, and that’s an aesthetic pleasure. There are population effects. You learn to deal with and to enjoy this kind of form in the same way that you would enjoy making outline, object, and silhouette. And it’s not cinema, it’s something else. It’s a time-released form, and so rehearsing that in a little imaginary like this is good. SdeS: And would you say that using time in that way, and thinking about urbanism like that, is unique to our period?

KE: Well it’s not unique. Many other people have worked this way. Anybody who is an urbanist, on some level, thinks this way, or the best ones do. One of the people that most inspires me (Benton MacKaye) was inspired by Patrick Geddes and worked in this way in the 1920s. So there’s nothing new about it. But it seems that we are continually under-rehearsed in this register, and maybe it is necessary to bringing it forward again and again . SdeS: What is a favorite public installation in architecture or urbanism for you? KE: I’m thinking of sound art… Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room” is an extraordinary piece. I was also just was reading a piece by Felicity Scott in the most recent e-flux, which was about an installation in this building in the ‘70s under Charles Moore. It was early Kent Bloomer. Project Argus—an amazing experiment in light and sound and environment. It was lit up and made all these sounds. Peter de Bretteville probably remembers this, and Bob too. Felicity starts the article with this quote from Charles Moore, “Students and faculty have now become involved to an unprecedented extent, in real problems in all their complexity with a concern for social issues and more concern for its form and less concern for the shape of objects in it…To an increasing extent, design solutions are expected to come at least partly from interaction with the user rather than from the imposition of an architect’s formal preconceptions.”* You can hear this in the context of a behaviorist moment with all of its pitfalls. But if you read it wrong, it sounds pretty interesting. So, for today, my answer would be Project Argus! See the e-flux article just out this week. * http://www.e-flux.com/journal/vanguards Felicity Scott, Vanguards, Issue 64

INTERVIEW

Tatiana Bilbao Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor April 6th 2015 By Julcsi Futo (M.Arch II ‘15) Julcsi Futo: In your lecture at MoMA on Learning from/in Latin America, you talked about your heritage in Mexican modernism, and your way finding as you felt forced into the “digital and parametric” era of architecture. Was your interest in raw geometric and pure forms a way to distance yourself from the smooth surfaces of digital design? How did this journey help you find your own voice? Did it help you to react against what was around you, as opposed going with the flow? Tatiana Bilbao: Definitely, it helped me become more me, what I am, more truthful to where I belong I forced myself to do something new, something I didn’t understand. I still don’t understand the purpose of designing a space through parametric definition. I admire a number of buildings and projects that were designed parametrically, but I don’t understand them. I don’t understand how a parameter can define a space.

TOP: 3 Tables - 9 Sites Construct from the design of a catwalk for a mobile fashion show that peruses the edges of Insterstate-Highways in the Eastern United States (1011A Project 1).

EXHIBITION NOTES

Desk, coffee table, dining room table, war table; humans spend a lot of time and do a lot of things with this fundamental construct. This year I have been experimenting with tables installed within the deep interiors of architectural pedagogy and practice. These are tricked-out, fetishized and exuberantly styled rhetorical devices tasked with the responsibility of operating at a minimum of three scales: 1:1, the scale of the studio/review space, an architectural scale like 1/4”=1’0”, and an urban or big-picture scale like 1”=200’. At 1:1 the table performs as a promiscuous spatial construct, atmospheric device and appendage to the studio space. It participates in the process and presentation of a project as a vehicle for models, drawings and other important objects. At the architectural scale, this primitive space is activated as a site for the installation of architectural space. A tertiary scale positions the work relative to a ‘big picture’, augmenting the scope of the construct, shuttling ideas through multiple sites of operation, sustaining echoes and reverberations. Bringing a table to a review wakes people up, and pulls them into the work. Like a dinner party or gathering of the chiefs, situating critics and students around a table advocates for conversation and active participation. If space can have a profound influence on the imagination and fundamental relationships with material cultures, then it might be valuable in our thinking to consider the space of the review as an additional site within the scope of the work.

Meghan Lewis (M.Arch I ‘15) Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955–1980 at the Museum of Modern Art marks the 60th anniversary of the museum’s historic exhibition, Latin American Architecture since 1945. On April 2nd, students in Tatiana Bilbao’s design studio attended the roundtable discussion held at MoMA as part of a series of events associated with the exhibit. The roundtable, led by Fabrizio Gallanti of Princeton University, was intended to encourage discussion of the impact of being educated in the context of the modernism that permeates Latin America. The panel included Angelo Bucci, founder of SPBR Arquitetos in São Paulo, and Felipe Mesa, founder of PlanB: Arquitectos, in Medellin, Colombia. Tatiana Bilbao discussed the impact of growing up in Mexico City on her architectural education, particularly the destruction of Mario Pani’s Tlatelolco apartment complex in the earthquake of 1985. Despite Gallanti’s push to discuss the formal influence of modernist Latin America, each architect turned instead to the influence of the economic and social context of modern buildings and cities. The stunning projects in the exhibit and the perspectives presented at the roundtable were a refreshing break from the Eurocentric architectural history discourse often found in American architecture schools. The advanced studios led by Tatiana Bilbao in Mexico and Sunil Bald in Brazil hopefully represent a much-needed trend of increased emphasis at YSOA on the complex and rich architectural history of Latin

When I was a student there was a strong emphasis on the digital, and history, especially modernism was erased from the curriculum. I grew up with and in these buildings. I lived near Paseo Reforma, and all the [Mario] Pani buildings were the places to go. My parents’ office, the doctors’ office, everything was in these modernist buildings and that’s where I grew up. Modernism was part of my unconscious, but I rebelled against it, and only later did I consciously engage with it. When I graduated, I tried to follow the lineage of not necessarily parametric architecture, but architecture that came from a different understanding of geometry. I believed that architecture could be defined through uncharted geometries. I would describe it as a rudimentary way of parametric architecture. When I collaborated with Gabriel Orozco for his house, I realized that this type of architecture was not compatible with the hand labor of Mexico, with economy, with technology, and with me. Gabriel’s idea was to transform an observatory into a house, and I assisted him working it out. We did many, many drawings over a year, and hired construction workers from the nearby fishing village. The project was very simple, a semi sphere with four rooms that were symmetrically arranged around it. It was very difficult to build, especially the semi sphere. The construction workers didn’t know how to read plans, and it was very difficult to explain to them how to build a clear, geometric form. How problematic would an uncharted geometric form be? It was very frustrating and that’s when I realized how important it is to understand the available hand labor and technology. When we started doing simpler forms, the building process became much easier, and it was all much less frustrating. Architecture should be amazing and surprising, but it does not have to be geometrically challenging. Architecture is a language through which we communicate, and I think it should be direct. We as architects can set up a platform, a building, for an incredible conversation to happen. The best way to start this conversation is to be direct, simple, straightforward, and beautiful. JF: Your interest in collage became obvious in your studio. Your Culiacán Botanical Garden in Sinaloa seems to be a manifestation of it. You provide paths through the garden and a necklace of amenities that create space for site specific installations. It simultaneously collages program (an unexpected museum in the botanical garden) and form (the meandering path, and all the different works of art that give meaning to the path) Can you talk about your interest in ‘collage’? TB: Architecture is about collaging, inserting a structure into a built environment, or landscape, that is made up of different things. You are adding to the collage. I like to think about collage not as a basic tool of representation (although we do that sometimes too), but as a juxtaposition of different things. I’m interested in how these different layers make up reality. This is an interesting way that architecture works in the city. JF: The scope of your work includes extremes. Low income housing with Infonavit, and high budget villas. Is there an exchange of ideas between the two extremes?

TB: That’s a good question. It’s funny, in the beginning this contrast also worked on a programmatic level. We were simultaneously designing a botanic garden and funeral house. The juxtaposition between the $8000 house and the $3M house is a reflection of Mexican society. We encounter these two polarities every day, every minute, this is our way of living. Instead of trying to make the low budget house simply “nicer” with a wooden floor, we are thinking about bringing a different scale to it. A beautiful, big scale we know from other, higher budget projects, but we try to make it work within the constraints. JF: Looking at this semester’s advanced studio critics, you are the only female. You are a role model to many of us, leading a successful an office and being mother of two. Did you have any female mentors that were directly involved in your career? TB: Women, I don’t know what happened to women. There were very few in the generation ahead of me, and they were much more academic. It’s hard. At this point I don’t believe in the gender thing. But I can see how what I do is different, because there are not many women leading architecture firms. Construction is male driven, and architecture is related to construction. I’m pleased to see that there are more and more female carpenters and plumbers and that our society is increasingly egalitarian. Architecture should not be male dominant. I believe that architecture is not a profession. I am an architect. It’s like being an artist. You don’t work as an artist, you are an artist. JF: Do you have any advice for both female and male young architects, how to find their own voice, and follow their pursuits? TB: You have to be very stubborn. What do you want? What do you like? It’s not easy and you can’t give up. It’s something I learned through being a gymnast for 15 years. I was competing for the national team. I learned about frustration, about repetition that makes you a perfectionist. I learned that you have to repeat something 1,000 times until you get it right. You have to continue even if you fail. You can’t blame it on the context, it’s on you. Follow your dreams and be stubborn! _____