Marlon Blackwell, winner of the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, is a visionary architect from Arkansas who seamlessly blends architectural ideals with distinct cultural contexts, a method that has produced a uniquely diverse and distinguished body of work that spans a variety of project types. His work is a continual testament to the power of architecture to shape lives and communities, and his passion and unique perspective has shaped him into one of the most influential voices in architecture.

Marlon Blackwell is an alumnus of Auburn University (BA) and Syracuse University (MAII) and is currently the E. Fay Jones Chair in Architecture at the University of Arkansas. Blackwell is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2020 AIA Gold Medal, 2017 E. Fay Jones AIA Gold Medal from AIA Arkansas, The 2012 Architecture Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award, as well as being the 2019 Resident Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, a National Academy of Design inductee, United States Artists Ford Fellow, and many others.

Marlon Blackwell will be presented by Javier Gomez, who Marlon is personally responsible for bringing to the United States, having invited him to teach at the University of Arkansas while co-teaching in the University of Arkansas Mexico Summer Urban Studio at the Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City.

Peter Miller Books will be hosting a book signing with Marlon for his most recently published monograph, RADICAL PRACTICE, which documents 30 years of innovative work by Marlon and his practice.

Radical Practice

Marlon Blackwell will discuss his architecture and design process and will share projects from his new monograph, Radical Practice: The Work of Marlon Blackwell Architects. Both the lecture and book emphasize projects in the public and civic realm, emerging from outside the established centers of architectural culture. These projects illustrate the work of Marlon Blackwell Architects, spanning across typologies, scales, and budgets by merging the universal language of architecture and the particulars of place.

The lecture will discuss the work, its methods, and consequences. It will suggest an open-endedness to the practice’s trajectory and interest in what a “radical practice” can be in the contemporary moment. A core principle at the heart of this practice is the assertion of making buildings and places a constant, authentic focus.

Event photos courtesy of Kyle Keirsey, Grant Gustafson, and Callan Roemer

STEVEN HOLL

Questions of Perception

KEYNOTE LECTURE

FRIDAY, AUGUST 5TH, 2022 AT 4:00 PM

MICROSOFT AUDITORIUM | SEATTLE CENTRAL LIBRARY

Steven Holl revisits Questions of Perception, the 1994 text he co-authored with Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Juhani Pallasmaa, in which Holl explores the phenomenology of architecture through eleven “phenomenal zones”:

• enmeshed experience

• perspectival space

• of color

• of light and shadow

• spatiality of night

• time, duration, and perception

• water: a phenomenal lens

• of sound

• detail: the haptic realm

• proportion, scale, and perception

• site, circumstance, and idea

Incorporating recent projects by Steven Holl Architects realized after the book’s publication, Holl recasts the “phenomenal zones” and connects new built works with these original concepts.

Steven Holl was born in 1947 in Bremerton, WA. He graduated from the University of Washington and pursued architecture studies in Rome in 1970. In 1976, he joined the Architectural Association in London and in 1977 established Steven Holl Architects in New York City. Steven Holl was named by Time Magazine as America’s Best Architect, for creating buildings that ‘satisfy the spirit as well as the eye.’ He has realized cultural, civic, academic, and residential projects in the United States and internationally. He specializes in seamlessly integrating projects into contexts with cultural and historic importance.

Steven Holl has been recognized with architectures most prestigious awards and prizes, notably the Praemium Imperiale Award for Architecture, the AIA Gold Medal, and the RIBA Jencks Award. Steven Holl is a tenured Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Planning; he has lectured and exhibited widely as well as published numerous texts.

$15 IN ADVANCE

$20 AT THE DOOR

[ SOLD OUT ]

Please stay posted for additional events to be announced soon!

Following their contribution to this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial titled “…and other such stories,” in which four distinct themes revolve around the question of how architecture relates to land, memory, rights and civic participation, Wolff Architects talk in Seattle will focus on Architecture of Consequence.

‘The work of Wolff Architects is rooted in developing an attitude around spatial practice that is broad and non-hegemonic. We work towards developing an architecture of consequence. The talk will present some ideas coming out of the work of our studio that illustrates some of these attitudes including: restorative justice, embedded research and of course, juicy design aesthetics. In other words, our creative output considers the past in terms of how to act restoratively and imaginatively when making interventions into the present.’

Wolff is a design studio concerned with developing an architectural practice of consequence through the mediums of design, advocacy, research and documentation. The Wolff team is led by Ilze & Heinrich Wolff, who work collaboratively with a group of highly skilled, committed, and engaged architects, creative practitioners and administrators. Heinrich Wolff is an architect and project manager with over 20 years’ experience. His work has received many awards including the Daimler Chrysler Award for Architecture (2007), the Lubetkin Award (2005), and in 2011 he was elected as the Designer of the Future by the Wouter Mikmak Foundation. He has held several academic appointments; he has been a visiting professor at the ETH in Zürich (2014 - 2015), IUAV in Venice (2013), Washington University in St. Louis (2015) and has been an adjunct associate professor at UCT, Cape Town. Ilze Wolff is a partner of Wolff and graduated with a B.Arch at the University of Cape Town. She received a Masters of Philosophy in Heritage and Public Culture, African Studies Unit, UCT. Ilze co-founded Open House Architecture in 2007, a transdisciplinary research practice which she continues to direct parallel to Wolff.

Both principals have taught and lectured internationally, including Switzerland, Germany, Italy, USA, Canada, Japan and India. They continue to do so. The work of the practice has also been included in various international exhibitions, including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Shenzhen Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Architectural Biennale, the Sao Paulo Biennale and the South American Architecture Biennale.

Jim Chuchu:
In Conversation

PRESENTED BY MARIANE IBRAHIM GALLERY & SPACE.CITY

Kenyan artist Jim Chuchu takes us on profound and dizzying journeys of psycho-spiritual time travel, spanning distant African pasts and potential Afro-futures. He remixes the popular religious experience of spiritualpossession—the penetration of the human body, at times willful, at times unbidden, by the vast invisible forces of the universe. In many communities in African and its Diaspora, spiritual presences are summoned into the body of the novice through dance, music, chanting, masking and other disciplines. The initial experience of possession, many devotees explain, is often terrifying, experienced as a kind of dreadful, incapacitating illness or sense of free-fall. Seeking healing, the possessed often join secret societies or “cults of affliction” that promise them relief from the terrors of the possessing other.

For additional information about Jim Chuchu’s work and Mariane Ibrahim Gallery  click here

For a video on some of Jim Chuchu’s work, click here. (password pagans)

Matt Olson of OOIEE

PRESENTED BY SPACE.CITY

Matt Olson is the founder of OOIEE (Office Of Interior Establishing Exterior) a trans-disciplinary studio that works on projects related to art, design, architecture, and the landscape. Their “open practice” model is based in the belief that the world makes us as much as we make it and thus is an act of poetic surrender that gives life to something that is easy to care about.

Matt's work both as OOIEE and RO/LU, his former studio, has been shown at the Aspen Art Museum, Etage in Copenhagen, Haus der Kunst, ANNEX at M+B Gallery in Los Angeles Patrick Parrish Gallery in NYC and Volume in Chicago. The work also lives in the permanent collection at the Walker Art Center and many notable private collections. 

Matt has been a visiting artist/lecturer at SCI-Arc, Cranbrook, PNCA/OCAC MFA AC+D (Portland), SAIC (School Art Institute Chicago), SCAD (Savannah). In addition to speaking about his work and “open practice,” he also tends to speak about “love, art history as a material, skate videos, Jonas Mekas, humility, John Hughes, Sturtevant, capitalism, Black Mountain College, ego, spirituality, acceptance, and the attempt to resist "self" all as an attempt to understand awareness isn't something we do, it's what we are." 

Join Lawrence Azerrad, an award winning art director, graphic designer, and author for a  lecture on what made Concorde the single most important piece of design in our recent history, and how it can serve as a window into human creativity, optimism, and the spirit of progress, as expressed through design.

Lawrence Azerrad is an award-winning art director, graphic designer, and author based in Los Angeles. Prior to opening LADdesign, he was an art director at Warner Bros Records and created packaging and artwork for artists including Miles Davis and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

In 2017, he won a Grammy for his work as the producer and creative director for The Voyager Golden Record 40th Anniversary Edition. The record embodies a sense of possibility and hope, and serves as a reminder of what we can achieve when we’re at our best—and that our future really is up to all of us.

 Pursuing his love of design in all forms, Azerrad’s first book, Supersonic: The Design and Lifestyle of Concorde, was released by Prestel in September 2018. It is available just about everywhere books are sold.

Devin Liddell, Principal Futurist, TEAGUE
Devin is a futurist who works collaboratively with clients such as Boeing, Intel, JW Marriott, Nike, Starbucks, and Toyota to design preferred futures in aviation, automotive, smart cities, personal mobility, space travel, and more. Devin also leads TEAGUE"s future-focused conceptual projects. Most recently, these have included: Poppi, a vision for an airline of the future, and Hannah, a proposal for the future of autonomous school transportation. With nearly two decades of experience in strategy and design, Devin has worked across a broad spectrum of industries: aerospace, education, software/technology, food and beverage, and retail; some of his past clients include Amazon, GE, Microsoft, Nordstrom, and Viacom. He’s a frequent contributor to Fast Company, a board member at Aerial Futures, and teaches regularly at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle.

Cameron Campbell
Principal Design Strategist, Amazon
Advisory Board Member, Space.City

Cruz and Forman are principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, a research-based political and architectural practice with a special emphasis on Latin American cities. Blurring conventional boundaries between theory and practice, their work crosses the fields of architecture and urbanism, political theory and urban policy, visual arts, and public culture. Their firm has been recognized as a prominent voice for socially-oriented design and has been working with the public in the San Diego / Tijuana border region to create community spaces for arts and educational programming.

Their firm was chosen as one of seven featured design teams at the U.S. pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. They examine the American / Mexican border as a boundaryless environmental area by “challenging the idea that the edge of a nation demands a wall.” Their work uses watersheds, indigenous lands, ecological corridors, and migratory patterns to argue that the border represents an area of commonality and cooperative opportunity rather than political division. 

Cruz has said, "The future of our cities depends less on buildings and more on the reorganization of socio-economic relations." Space.City is excited to welcome them to Seattle.

Director of Planning, City of Detroit

Chris Reed: Founding Director of Stoss Landscape Urbanism

PRESENTED BY SPACE.CITY

Space.city presents Chris Reed, Founding Director of Stoss Landscape Urbanism. He is recognized internationally as a leading voice in the transformation of landscapes and cities. His work collectively includes urban revitalization initiatives, climate resilience efforts, adaptations of infrastructure and former industrial sites, and the design of vibrant public spaces that cultivate a diversity of social uses and cultural traditions. 

Reed is the co-editor of Projective Ecologies, a recipient of the 2012 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Landscape Architecture, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the 2017 winner of the Rome Prize. He is currently Co-Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Eero Saarinen:
The Architect Who Saw the Future

Eero Saarinen: The Architect Who Saw the Future examines the life of an architectural giant who envisioned the future. His sudden untimely death at age 51 cut short what continues to be one of the most influential legacies in American architecture and continues to inspire architects today.

SHOWTIMES

SIFF Film Center

Eero Saarinen’s visionary buildings include National Historic Landmarks such as St. Louis’ iconic Gateway Arch and the General Motors Technical Center in Michigan. Saarinen also designed New York’s TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport, Yale University’s Ingalls Rink and Morse and Stiles Colleges, Virginia’s Dulles Airport, and modernist pedestal furniture like the Tulip chair. Travel with his son, Eric Saarinen, as he visits the sites of his father’s work on a cathartic journey that showcases the architect’s body of timeless work for the first time. Today, Saarinen’s work stands apart and continues to inspire.

Signe Nielsen: 
Current work

Signe Nielsen has been practicing as a landscape architect and urban designer in New York since 1978. Her body of work has renewed the environmental integrity and transformed the quality of spaces for those who live, work and play in the urban realm.  A Fellow of the ASLA, she is the recipient of over 100 national and local design awards for public open space projects and is published extensively in national and international publications. Ms Nielsen is a Professor of Urban Design and Landscape Architecture at Pratt Institute in both the Graduate and Undergraduate Schools of Architecture and currently serves as President for the Public Design Commission of the City of New York.  Born in Paris, Ms. Nielsen holds degrees in Urban Planning from Smith College; in Landscape Architecture from City College of New York; and in and in Construction Management from Pratt Institute.

Wendell Burnette:
Dialogues in Space

Wendell Burnette is a self-taught architect with an internationally recognized body of work. His architectural practice based in Phoenix and is engaged in a wide range of private and public projects. Burnette’s work is concerned with space, light, context and community. He is a native of Nashville who discovered the southwest desert as an apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. His eleven year association with the studio of Will Bruder culminated in six-year design collaboration on the Phoenix Central Library. He teaches and lectures widely in the United States and abroad. His projects include residences located locally and nationally, the Palo Verde Library / Maryvale Community Center and the much acclaimed Amangiri Resort in southern Utah, as well as current work in China, Canada, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The work of Wendell Burnette has been published in more than 200 publications worldwide and has earned numerous distinctions for Design Excellence, including a 1990 Young Architects Award from PA magazine, a 1999 “Emerging Voices Award” from the Architectural League of New York, three “Record House” awards from Architectural Record magazine, over 10 AIA Arizona and AIA Western Mountain Region design awards, as well as one National AIA award and one National AIA / ALA Design Award for the Palo Verde Library / Maryvale Community Center. In 2009, Burnette received the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City recognizing an American Architect whose work is characterized by a strong personal direction, which was accompanied by an exhibition at the Academy in the same year. Most recently, his first full-length monograph Dialogues in Space by Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers was released worldwide. His design philosophy is grounded in listening and distilling the essence of a project to create highly specific architecture that is at once functional and poetic.

“Wendell Burnette is a very American architect. His character strikes us as being somewhere between Woody Guthrie and Will Rogers. He does not come from an academic world, or one that is grounded in theory. Rather, his work is developed from the real and sometimes rude work of thinking about how to make things. That is to say that he brings honesty, a lack of pretension, and a sense of forthright directness to his work.”  -Tod Williams and Billie Tsien

New monograph: Dialogues in Space: Wendell Burnette Architects

Dialogues in Space: Process and Ideas in the work of Wendell Burnette Architects is the first multi-project monograph on this American architects selective body of work. The title alludes to the architects view that architecture is a constructed conversation between people, things and time. Six singular projects from the architects oeuvre are presented in-depth through the architects' own words, drawings and photography. Also included is a comprehensive essay by the celebrated architectural writer / critic Robert McCarter entitled Crafting Space: Composition and Construction in the Architecture of Wendell Burnette that examines the “thinking and making” process behind the built and un-built work across 15 years of practice. The different typologies of the work explores authentic human experience through provocative spatial constructions - public and private in diverse locales - that attempt to promote an expansive dialogue with our places, our environment, our communities, ourselves, and our time. Through extensive research into the ‘art of building' – the specificity of place and locally appropriate construction systems, materials, craft, and their infinite capacity to transcend mere construction, the work strives toward an architecture that is at once functional and poetic.

Tristram Carfrae of Arup:
Completing Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família

 
PRESENTED BY SPACE.CITY

The construction of La Sagrada Família began in 1882.  One year later, the original architect resigned and Antoni Gaudí was commissioned to redesign the Basilica.  Gaudi worked on the project for 43 years, until his death in 1926.

The lecture will concentrate on the six main towers envisioned as the highest points of the Basilica.  Construction during the 20th Century was largely carried out in conventional stone masonry, with recent work using reinforced concrete and stone facing.  However, with completion of the remaining 30% of the Basilica due in 2026, the design team have adopted a new system using pre-stressed stone panels. This marriage of new digital methods and traditional craftsmanship will dramatically reduce the weight, cost and time needed to complete the Basilica.  Tristram will describe how this new technique evolved, including initial ideas, virtual prototyping, analysis, physical testing, production and assembly.

Tristram Carfrae is Arup’s Deputy Chairman.  He has collaborated with world-renowned architects including Renzo Piano, Normal Foster, Philip Cox, Richard Rogers, and Thomas Heatherwick.  Tristam has a reputation for challenging accepted methodologies and has contributed to the design of numerous award-winning buildings, including the Water Cube for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Helix Bridge in Singapore, and currently, Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Família.

In 2014, Tristram was awarded the prestigious Gold Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers, given to an individual for exceptional and outstanding contributions to the advancement of structural engineering.

Mimi Hoang of nArchitects

Mimi Hoang is a founding principal of nArchitects and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University. The "n" represents a variable, indicating the firm's interest in designing for a variety of experiences within a systematic approach. The work ranges from buildings to pavilions to interiors, and across cultural, residential and commercial uses. Through micro-housing, animated facades and performance spaces, the firm explores new paradigms in urban living, public space and contemporary practice. nArchitects have won numerous awards and competitions and are currently designing four kiosks for Seattle's new waterfront.

Mimi Hoang was also on the jury for AIA Seattle’s 2016 Honor Awards on Monday, November 7th at Benaroya Hall.

Room for Change: A Mural by Carolina Silva

 
PRESENTED BY SPACE.CITY & URBAN ARTWORKS
WITH DOWNTOWN SEATTLE ASSOCIATION &
FRIENDS OF WATERFRONT SEATTLE

For this year's Seattle Design Festival, Space.City and
Urban ArtWorks are collaborating with Carolina Silva to create a mural at the Pike Street Hill Climb along Western Avenue. The transformation will take place over the first week of the festival, with support from Downtown Seattle Association and Friends of Waterfront Seattle.  

A celebration honoring the transformation will be held at the mural, on September 21st, from 6 - 9 pm.  The community is invited to enjoy a live busker performance by John Strayer Music and refreshments, including libations from the Seattle Beer Company, our beer and venue sponsor. The event is free and open to the public. 

Carolina Silva's work often explores the dichotomy of inside and outside.  The wall-paper like quality of the mural suggests the idea of containment, as with a box or a room.  Multiple panels of repetitive pattern envelope the space, transforming a forgotten place- a mundane passageway- into a vibrant room.

Repetitive patterns and hand-traced flowers are recurrent elements in Silva's recent work; they represent chaos within harmony, or rather harmony within chaos. Vulnerability is a concept rarely explored in public art, but through its floral motifs and dusty pinks, the mural is both soft and iconic at the same time.  It is both quiet while focusing attention; feels intimate while being open.  The mural is a reminder that although seemingly permanent, the urban environment can be changed.  

Toshiko Mori

PRESENTED BY SPACE.CITY

Toshiko Mori is the principal of Toshiko Mori Architect and teaches at Harvard Graduate School of Design.  

She is the founder of VisionArc, a think-tank promoting global dialogue for a sustainable future and one of the founders of Paracoustica, a non-profit promoting music in underserved communities.

Mori’s recent work includes the Cambridge Headquarters for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and the School of Environmental Research & Technology for Brown University.  Her firm is currently engaged in master plans for the Buffalo Botanical Gardens and the Brooklyn Public Library.  

She has also participated in international exhibitions including the 2012 and 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale.

David Adjaye

PRESENTED BY SPACE.CITY

David Adjaye is director of Adjaye Associates, founded in 2000.  With offices in the UK, US, Germany and Ghana, the global practice has won numerous prestigious commissions, including the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 David Adjaye's works vary from residential to civic and include collaborations with artists.  Celebrated for his innovative use of color and material,  Adjaye’s rigorous investigations into history and culture continue to challenge formulaic interpretations of place.

 Adjaye has held professorships at the universities of Pennsylvania, Yale and Princeton and is currently the John C. Portman Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard.  He has received numerous awards including the Order of the British Empire, Design Miami/ Year of the Artist title and the Wall Street Journal Innovator Award.

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