Spotted at the Rem Koolhaas lecture last night in UCLA’s packed Dickenson (is that the right one?) auditorium: Mr. Brad Pitt. Funnier than seeing Tyler Durden’s twin live and in the flesh (in FDNY hat and leather jacket no less) was the crowd of (mostly) architecture student’s reaction. O My Gawd its Brad Pitt!! Following the lecture he was accosted to sign things and pose as a buddy in several pictures. Perhaps funnier than even that is the reaction to Koolhaas himself – fellow architecture students brought their worn copies of Delirious New York and in one instance a map of Holland (?) for him to sign. Perhaps ladies could get their chests signed too. It seems that OMA/AMO has been unsuccessful in their attempts to thwart the culture of the Star Architect. Even the morning of the lecture, Koolhaas was referred to as the “Britney Spears of architecture” in an otherwise unfortunate review of the LACMA building in the LA Times. So, Pop Star he is then.
The content of the lecture, however, was not quite Pop trash. He provided a peek into how the OMA/AMO split works for them, how it is organized, what each branch is up to lately, and both branches’ struggle to work within what he calls the YES regime: the tight grip of the Market. If you cannot get into OMA’s work in the years after S,M,L,XL then you should at the very least realize the brilliance of AMO.. taking the architecture out of what architects do in order to extend the profession and get paid even when building turns out to be the least viable path to send a client down. Getting paid for thinking and consulting – which we must do as part of any architectural project anyway – puts the architect back into a position of (some) control over the built environment. Being able to separate ones practice from the myths of Art and Creativity are absolutely neccesary in order to pull this off – I think that may be another rant though. Supposedly the first two books from Harvard and AMO’s Project on the City (he confessed in the lecture that it should have been titled the Project on What Used to be the CIty) will be coming out this year.. March or May or something, covering China and Retail respectively. $75 dollars each, I will wager, or higher. Working within the Market indeed.
Comments on OMA/AMO? Direct them to discuss@rise-ind.com and perhaps we can get a discussion going.
At SCI-Arc, its official. Moss is the Boss. Not only is he now in charge, but he seems to be rapidly whipping the place into his kind of shape. In the first week he has replaced the Grad and Undergrad directors as well as the Thesis coordinator, and is well on his way overhauling the Thesis process. A quote, “This is not IIT in 1965”: – thank god. There was a moment I could see us going down that path. Anyhow. Things are certainly changing, we’ll see how it actually pans out.
For those of you on the East Coast: Stockbridge, MA – January 24th and 25th, 2002- SANGAM, is a multi-media production first shown at Club Helsinki in Great Barrington in July 2001. It includes live music, a short film and video presentation, fashion show, a gallery of photographs and paintings. The presentation will also include an interactive discussion about the project and its inspiration: The Maha Kumbh Mela festival that took place in Allahabad, India (January 2001). Tickets for SANGAM are $10/person. Please call ahead for reservations at 413.298.1697. The Unicorn Theatre is located on Rte. 7 in Stockbridge, MA. check www.projectilearts.org for more info.
Also for those of you on the West Coast: Check out AIM – ART IN MOTION: The Annual International Festival of Time-Based Media Presented by the University of Southern California School of Fine Arts
The first of the AIM III LECTURE SERIES – NATALIE JEREMIJENKO, 1999 Rockefeller fellow, design engineer and technoartist NatalieJeremijenko was recently named one of the top one hundred young innovators by the MIT Technology Review. Her work includes digital,electromechanical, and interactive systems, in addition to biotechnological work.
Saturday, January 26th, 2-4 pm
Ahmanson Auditorium, Museum of Contemporary Art
250 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012
Hi there. I wanted to let everyone know of this month’s Video 825 (a series of monthly video screenings at Gallery 825 (825 N. La Cienega Blvd. in LA). The Thurs. Jan. 25th screening is at 8pm and will feature interviews by Lyn Kienholz with artists Michael C. McMillen, Karen Carson, Tom Knechtel, Carole Caroompas and many others. It is put together by “www.netropolitan.org – MUSEUM WITHOUT WALLS” which is another form of outreach by the non-profit California/International Arts Foundation, founded by Lyn Kienholz. C/IAF is dedicated to cultivating the network of relationships within all the art forms.
“Video 825” includes experimental, documentary, narrative, conceptual and animation videos and takes place every third Thursday of each month. There is a suggested donation in support of this program of $3 for Gallery 825/LAAA members; $5 for non-members. It always proves to be an entertaining and thought provoking event. Hope to see you there!
The Sci-Arc Spring Lecture Series begins tonight with Linda Roy of ROY Architects (NYC) presenting her work up in the Library. That means, north end of the building, up in the mezzanine level. See Sci-arc site for directions to the school.
Why not in the actual main space lecture hall? I assume that has something to do with it having worse acoustics than a busy subway station. A few useability issues were perhaps overlooked in its design.
Anyway. Come to the lecture – you can check out her work before you go at Architectural Records website here.
The Griffith Observatory photos are up, as you may have noticed. Thesis images to come by next weekend.
SCI-Arc directorship up for grabs this week. The almighty Board of Directors is set to make a decision sometime this week, though I don’t know when the announcement will actually be. The choices are SCI-Arc insiders Studioworks (Robert Mangurian and Mary Ann Ray), another SCI-Arc insider Eric Owen Moss – of reinventing Culver City fame, and semi-outsiders Craig Hodgetts and Ming Fung, of Hodgetts and Fung fame. Will two heads prove better than one?
Well, I suppose from the state the school has been in lately things can only get better. Right?
We will know for sure soon I suppose.
In todays inbox: Benjamin Bratton (Razorfish, Sci-Arc faculty, etc) will be on Talk of the City on KPCC 89.3 today (?) discussing the SCI_Arc Terrorism + Architecture symposium on a panel on local universities’ reactions to 9-11. Live at 1:00pm, replayed at 9:00pm. Listen on in.
SCI-Arc thesis wrapped up yesterday with a party I sadly had to miss. I hear there was grilled tuna… hm. Keep posted for a collection of images from the work, coming up this week or as soon as I can format it all. I swear the Griffith Observatory photos are coming too. I swear.
Other things coming up: A new architecture and design museum – amazingly called A+D Architecture and Design Museum – opens in downtown LA on January 24th with a show called Urban Innovations: Shrine to Junipero Sera.
“The exhibition displays the work of four architects – Frank Gehry & Associates, Morphosis, Venturi Scott Brown, and Jose Raphael Moneo – all of whom were invited by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to design a hypothetical shrine to Junipero Serra.”
The gallery is in the Bradbury Building (of Bladerunner fame) on 304 south broadway, downtown LA. website here
Ahhh. Back from a long long absence. Several reviews, one trip to the east coast for holiday action, one visit from girlfriends father, a re-integration to the life of an architecture student, and I am finally ready to get Rise Industries rolling again.
Look to your right -> and check out some images and short short reviews of openings at Chung King Road from last friday. Keep your eyes on the Griffith Observatory bit too, that should be up anytime this weekend, hopefully sooner rather than later.
In the recent new here. Rise Industries welcomes Chris Sicat to the community. Chris is the curator/owner of The Hatch Gallery (temporarily without a physical location, we can only hope for its speedy return), does some stuff over at LACMA, and founded the Bastard Company performance group. He seems to keep tabs on goings on in the LA art world, so hopefully he will keep us abreast of anything worth checking out, or avoiding for that matter.
In other news, this weekend thesis reviews are being held at SCI-Arc. The school is in total chaos tonight as everyone pitches in for the final stretch to get it all up on the wall. I recommend you drop by and take a peek at a couple of presentations. All are welcome, and there has got to be some free food and booze involved somehow. Well, go there if architecture is your thing anyway.
Many more items to go up soon, so check back in. word.
No clouds. Mountains all around. 85 degrees. January.
I FUCKING LOVE LOS ANGELES!!!!
No clouds. Mountains all around. 85 degrees. January.
I FUCKING LOVE LOS ANGELES!!!!