People Talking about Architecture - 06.03.2006

New York:
Symposium - Contamination: Architecture
10:00 AM - Guggenheim Museum
The day's speakers will include Greg Lynn, Kunlé Adeyemi, Alex McDowell, Zaha Hadid, Bernard Tschumi, Farshid Moussavi, Patrik Schumacher, Elizabeth Diller, Sanford Kwinter, and Gabriele Mastrigli, and the even marks the opening of Zaha Hadid’s exhibition at Guggenheim. Talks will focus on what Anthony Appiah calls “that endless process of imitation and revision” – that has eroded the reality and idea of authentic culture and unique architecture.

People Talking About Architecture – 06.02.2006

New York:
B. V. Doshi - Architecture for India
6:00 PM - Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place)
The Indian architect, educator, and planner who worked with Le Corbusier in Paris from 1951 to 1954 as senior designer, and then in India to supervise Corbusier’s projects in Ahmedabad and Chandigarh, will speak. Today he maintains an office, Vastu-Shilpa Consultants, in Ahmedabad. His lecture will "explore spatial concepts and architectural themes in his work while examining contradictions and challenges posed by India's unique cultural milieu, rapid urbanization and growth."

Columbia University:
In Dialogue: Peter Eisenman and Mark Wigley
4:00 PM - Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall
This marks the third session of an on-going dialogue.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.30.2006

New York:
Jaroslav Andel & Kenneth Frampton: The New Vision For The New Architecture
6:30 pm - The Urban Center (457 Madison Avenue)
As a way of promoting the new book, The New Vision For The New Architecture; Czechoslovakia 1918-1938, the author, Jaroslav Andel and theorist, Kenneth Frampton will converse about this era when both architects and photographers pursued beliefs in social and technological utopias and saw themselves as creating a new world.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.25.2006

Montréal
Norman Pressman- Cities Designed for Winter
7:00 PM - Paul Desmarais Theatre (Canadian Centre for Architecture 1920, rue Baile)
The Professor Emeritus of Planning and Urban Design at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Waterloo, will speak about urban design in the colder climates.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.24.2006

Julius Shulman - (Untitled Lecture)
7:00 PM - San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall (800 Chestnut Street )
This "long-anticipated program" is Mr. Shulman's only scheduled public appearance in San Francisco this year. It involves the photographer giving a personal tour through the galleries of his Architectural photographs.

Delft University:
Terry Knight – (Untitled Lecture)
Faculty of Architecture – (time not posted)
The MIT Professor of Computation and Architecture, will discuss creativity in design, and other areas. He contends that creativity is sometimes located in the designer (a creative person), sometimes in the process used to create designs (a creative process), and sometimes in the designs themselves (creative products). With his informal talk he aims to ask, "Where and what is creativity when design is done computationally, in particular, with generative or rule-based systems?

People Talking About Architecture – 05.22.2006

New York:
Dan Gottlieb & Penny Herscovitch - Materialized Light: PadLab Exhibition & Lecture
6:30 PM - Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place)
These two designers formed PadLab, a young, Los Angeles based design studio, that creates new materials, architectural glass, lighting, and fine art. The exhibit and lecture will explore the interaction of light with their new materials: Flexicomb and Bubble Glass If you miss the lecture you can still see the materials all weeak at New York's International Contemporary Furniture Fair, booth #1073.

UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design:
David Rockwell – (Untitled Lecture)
6:30 PM - 1302 Perloff Hall
David Rockwell is CEO of the Rockwell Group based in New York City. Founded in 1984, it has 200 built projects to its credit. Rockwell has been honored with a lifetime achievement award from Interiors magazine, is included in Interior Design magazine's Hall of Fame and was awarded the Presidential Design Award for the Grand Central Terminal renovation.

Washington D.C.:
Zachary M. Schrag - Metro's Many Creators
6:30 PM – National Bulding Museum
The author of The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro, and assistant professor of history at George Mason University will discuss how rapid transit systems are not the creation of a single individual, agency, or profession, but a collaboration among planners, engineers, architects, and citizens. He will present some of the interactions and debates that resulted in the Washinton Metro system as it exists today.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.19.2006

University of California, Los Angeles
Elizabeth Diller – (Untitled Lecture)
6:30 PM – Perloff Hall
The professor and partner at New York–based Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is expected to present both the Highline project and Boston Institute Of Contemporary Art.

York (Pennsylvania):
Marlon Blackwell – (Untitled Lecture)
7:00 PM - Penn State York Pullo Family Performing Arts Center
Mr. Blackwell was featured in record’s February 2001 article, “Out There—Practicing Architecture Outside the Centers of Fashion” and his work was recently published in the monograph An Architecture of the Ozarks: The Works of Marlon Blackwell.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.18.2006

Santa Fe:
Conference - Making Cities Livable - True Urbanism and Healthy Communities
May 18-22, La Fonda Hotel on the Plaza
The four day conference will cover topics listed here.


New York:
Herbert Muschamp - Blinking at the Abyss
6:00 PM - Downtown Association (60 Pine St.)
The former New York Times architectural critic will speak in a lecture series aimed to highlight the architecture in Lower Manhattan.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.17.2006

Stanford University:
James Timberlake – (Untitled Lecture)
6:30 PM - Cubberley Auditorium
The architect, partner of Kieran Timberlake Associates, and adjunct professor at University of Pennsylvania will lecture about recent work.

University of Oregon:
Lars Bleher – (Untitled Lecture)
12:00 PM - 722 SW 2nd Avenue

Boston:
Matthew Frederick - Copernicus Goes to Suburbia
6:00 PM - Boston Public Library
The architect, urban designer, writer and teacher will demonstrate with the skills commonly taught to beginning architecture students, how long-standing perceptual/cognitive biases in our culture have caused suburban sprawl, urban blight, and other dysfunctions in American culture.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.16.2006

New York:
Yushi Uehara & Randall Crane - FORMAL | INFORMAL
6:30 PM - Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place)
Bert De Muynck, the Co-Founder People's Architecture, will moderate this second of nine-part series that offers an understanding of current Chinese architectural and urban practice. Much more information here.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.15.2006

Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Can Bilsel - Authenticity in Architecture: A Postcolonial Critique
5:30 PM Room 3-133

Washngton, D.C.:
Nicholas Adams - SOM’s Seventy Years of Iconic Designs
6:30 PM - The National Building Museum
The author of “Skidmore Owings & Merrill: The Experiment Since 1936” and Architecturectural History Professor at Vassar College, was granted unfettered access to SOM’s archives to research his book. He will discuss the firm’s history, the ideas that drove its founders, and how it remains “a vital force in architecture today.”

University of California, Los Angeles
Dana Cuff – (Untitled Lecture)
6:30 PM – Perloff Hall
The Professor will present a home-turf lecture, expecting to cover her research of emergent pervasive computing technologies and their implications for design in the public sphere.

Miss Brooklyn?

The provacative "Miss Brooklyn" nickname was in the headlines of several New York newspapers this morning reporting on yesterday's media event with Frank Gehry, Laurie Olin, and James Stuckey of Forest City Ratner. Provoked, DYWSC sought to comment on the day's events, and happened across Norman Oder's blog posting from April 18, 2006, entitled "From "Miss Brooklyn" to "Ms. Brooklyn": belated feminism or defensive tactic?" which makes the following points about the nickname "Miss Brooklyn" and its change (in the little-noticed 3/31/06 Forest City Ratner press pelease) to "Ms. Brooklyn"

...
Why the change?
Given that FCR officials and p.r. people don't answer my questions, I'll have to speculate on the reasons.

1) Perhaps this is a belated recognition that, in the 21st century, calling a building "Miss" just doesn't cut it, even if the architect designing it was reared in an earlier era of gallantry. The problem with that explanation is that the developer, Gehry, and the p.r. team had a lot of time to consider their message before unveiling "Miss Brooklyn" last July.

2) More plausible is that the renaming prevents critics from using the term "Miss" as a verb. As Aaron Naparstek wrote in the New York Press last July, in a column headlined Grumbles About Gehry:The designs are so bad they’re almost funny. Gehry calls the 70-story skyscraper at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush “Miss Brooklyn,” as in, “We’ll sure miss Brooklyn if this crap gets built.”

We can't ms. Brooklyn, can we? But maybe there's another explanation--the question is worth asking
....

In the era of "got milk?" and other variants, one might expect to see a couple "Miss Brooklyn?" shirts at tomorrow's

Garden, Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Rain or Shine
Saturday, May 13, 9am—6pm
205 Berkeley Place (Between 7th and 8th Avenue, Park Slope)

People Talking About Architecture – 05.12.2006

Standford University:
Matt Kahn - Antoni Gaudi
8:00 PM - Hewlett Teaching Center, Room 201
The Stanford Professor, Artist, and Designer, will speak on the Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.

University of Oregon:
Lars Bleher - Ptld.
12:00 PM - 722 SW 2nd Avenue

New York:
Antonio Muntadas & Juan Herreros - Collaboration - A Speculation
6:00 PM - Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place)
The pair will present a conversation exploring the dynamic relationship between the practice of art and architecture between two of the disciplines’ contemporary visionaries.

People Talking About Architecture – 05.11.2006

University of Oregon:
Lars Bleher - Ptld.
12:00 PM - 722 SW 2nd Avenue

People Talking About Architecture – 05.09.2006

Art Institute of Technology:
Bernard Tschumi - Event-form
6:00 PM - Rubloff Auditorium (111 South Michigan Ave.)

University of Massachusetts - Amherst:
Daniel Libeskind - Breaking Ground
4:30 PM - Bowker Auditorium
In case you missed the lecture in New Jersey last month, here is a opportunity to hear the man who won the World Trade Center design competition in 2003 lecture. Since the competition he was appointed as master plan architect for the site in New York City, and may find time that night to comment on the experience.

The Cooper Union:
Janine Benyus - Biomimicry
6:00 PM - The Great Hall (pm 7 East 7th Street)
Janine Benyus will present Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, her work on an emerging science that seeks sustainable solutions by mimicking nature's designs and processes. Widely known and respected in the world of sustainable design, Janine Benyus has named the field that analyzes nature's best ideas—spider silk and prairie grass, seashells and brain cells—and adapts them for human use. She is expected to present nature-based innovations that will change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business.

Madison WI:
Robert Fishman - Beyond Sprawl
7:00 PM – (Unconfirmed Location)
The Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, and author of Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier (1977), will present a lecture who’s full title is Beyond Sprawl: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Utopian Vision for America.

University of Oregon:
Esther Hagenlocher - Ptld.
12:00 PM - 722 SW 2nd Avenue

New York:
Mojgan Hariri – (Untitled Lecture)
6:30 PM - The Urban Center (457 Madison Avenue)
Half of the Iranian-born, American-educated sisters Gisue and Mojgan Hariri will speak about “Their up-to-the-minute recasting of classical modernist principles ha[ving] made them a source of continuing inspiration to design students and professionals alike.”