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In the fall, the school hosted throughout the 100 and 400 Avery level galleries the exhibition "IN-BETWEEN Architectures: Infrastructure and the Construction Site, Photography by Stanley Greenberg". Somewhere between urban archaeology, forensic engineering and time-elapse photography, Greenberg's striking exhibition offered critical insight into the paradoxical nature of 'memory' as a productive agent to initiate change. From turn of the century aqueducts and urban landmarks to construction shots of the recent MIT dormitory by Steven Holl, the range of representational abstraction found common between eras was testimony of a post modernist mind at work.
In celebration of the remarkable achievements of the first dirigible aircraft and its corresponding airship shed building, the 100 Avery level exhibition, "Housing the Airships, Curated by Christopher Dean" served as an effective reminder of earlier utopian aspirations. Presented as an extensive survey of colossal long-span lightweight structures that emerged throughout Europe and the United States in reaction to the ever increasing desire for transatlantic flight, this often rare and forgotten engineering typology remains enigmatically fresh to a new generation of technological enthusiasts.
On the 400 Avery level, the exhibition, "Organic Crossings: Photography by Judith Turner" offered a hauntingly beautiful commentary on "figurative space" as an alternative path for architecture. Focusing exclusively on the banana leaf as the main protagonist for this series, Turner displayed an extraordinary range of insight as she created poetry from commonplace.
Finally completed as a new and improved traveling exhibition, "Jean Prouvé: Three Nomadic Structures, Curated by Evan Douglis and Robert Rubin" was presented in the Arthur Ross Gallery, Buell Hall throughout the entire academic year. Inspired by Jean Prouvé's commitment to the most advanced technology of his time and the legendary contributions he made to the development of modular systems, Douglis's exhibition design set out to reinterpret these conceptual directives from a new and contemporary perspective. Celebrating the current opportunities afforded by high-end 3-D modeling software and five-axis rapid prototyping milling, a series of interlocking modular elements were produced for assembly as an exhibition "display-scape". Intended to function as a curatorial game board, this new membrane and its matrix of landing sites served to offer a range of recombinatory flexibility ideal for any collection continuously undergoing change. Focusing on three of his most significant buildings: the Glass Manufacturing School of Croismare (1948), the Tropical House from Niamey (1949), and the Aluminum Centenary Pavilion at Villepinte (1954), the exhibition presented a selection of period furniture, building artifacts, and Hervé photographs as further evidence of a masterful career.
In the spring, the exhibition, "WTC Memorial Competition, Selected Entries and the Finalist Project by Baurmann, Brooks and Coersmeier" was presented throughout the 400 Avery level gallery. Juxtaposing a series of Columbia student entries along side recent graduate competition finalists, the exhibition set out to highlight the visionary expanse of proposals coming from a more experimental constituency of architects. Comprised of the actual presentation boards submitted to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the exhibit additionally sought to reaffirm Columbia's ongoing commitment to architecture as an agent of social change.
Readdressing the timeless legacy of a modern master, the 100 Avery level exhibition "Villa Tugenhat: A Work by Mies Van der Rohe, Curated by Jindrich and Hana Megova" presented one of the more important residential projects realized in the early years of Mies's career. Conceived as a traveling exhibition, a selection of exquisitely composed photographs offered rare insight into the evolution of an early modernist practice poised at the crest of radical change.
"Architectural Intelligence Agency, The Summer 2003 Studio of Sulan Kolatan with Gregory Okshteyn", was presented as a full-scale installation on the 100 Avery level gallery. Highlighting the experimental efforts so thoughtfully conceived in a Kolatan studio, the installation was an effective reminder of one of the more innovative digital design methodologies currently being deployed in architectural education today.
Offered in contrast to our ongoing discourse on aesthetics, typology, innovative technology, and research applied to new forms of material practice the exhibit, "Advertising + Ethics, Curated by James Fischer" presented on the 400 Avery level gallery raises for debate the often overlooked yet complex bureaucratic and legalistic processes that lie below the surface of our architectural profession. Conceived as a historical survey, the exhibit exposes the intricate and often difficult relationship between advertising and professional ethics. Following a series of case studies documented between the late 19th century and modern times, a provocative trail of political intrigue was placed on display for all to see.
Reassessing a drift towards "immateriality" so common in an era of information exchange, the final 100 Avery level exhibition, "Lucid Dreaming: Eight Japanese Architecture Works in Glass, Photography by Erieta Attali" eloquently posited architecture at the edge between the real and the imagined. Conceived as a metaphysical journey into the ambient and enigmatic qualities in architecture so often fleeting and beyond ones grasp, the exhibition in its totality marked a significant achievement in artistic production.
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Architecture Galleries
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