SCI-Arc Announces Spring 2013 Public Programs

Award-Winning Architects, Designers, Artists Featured in Noteworthy Lectures and Exhibitions


LOS ANGELES, Dec. 6, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is pleased to announce its spring 2013 schedule of public lectures, discussions and exhibitions. The downtown Los Angeles school will welcome on its campus an international roster of award-winning architects, urban historians, critics, writers, designers, and artists for programs that span from innovative theory to contemporary architecture, technical practice, music and media. Events and exhibitions at SCI-Arc are always free to the public.

SCI-Arc events next spring feature noted architects including Ben Van Berkel, Peter de Bretteville, Annie Chu, Frederick Fischer, Hsinming Fung, Coy Howard, Wes Jones, Jeffrey Kipnis, Eugene Kupper, SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss, Michael Rotondi, David Ruy and Andrew Zago, as well as a keynote lecture by Pritzker Prize-winning architect and SCI-Arc trustee Thom Mayne.

Spring 2013 public lectures include:

January 16, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Dwayne Oyler & Jenny Wu: Lineworks
Principals, Oyler Wu Collaborative, Los Angeles; Faculty, SCI-Arc
Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu established the architecture and design firm of Oyler Wu Collaborative in Los Angeles in 2004. The office has been published globally and is recognized for its experimentation in design, material research and fabrication. Their recent projects include reALIze, an art installation based on the face of Muhammad Ali (designed in collaboration with Michael Kalish); Screenplay, the featured architectural installation at Dwell on Design 2012 made with 45,000 feet of rope; Netscape, a temporary pavilion for SCI-Arc graduation constructed of 9 miles of knitted rope; and a 16-story residential tower in Taipei, Taiwan. Oyler and Wu are members of the design faculty at SCI-Arc and received Master of Architecture degrees from Harvard University. www.oylerwu.com">www.oylerwu.com

January 23, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Pier Vittorio Aureli: Theory and Ethos
Co-founder, Dogma Brussels, Belgium; Professor, Architectural Association, London
Pier Vittorio Aureli is an architect and educator. He is the co-founder of Dogma, an architectural studio that focuses on the project of the city. He teaches at the Architectural Association and Yale School of Architecture and is the author of The Project of Autonomy (2008) and The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (2011). Aureli's lecture will trace the development of the architectural project, focusing on the relationship between social and political conflicts and the urge of architecture to tame these conflicts and reform the city. His lecture attempts to situate architecture beyond regressive or progressive terms, as material evidence that the evolution of design has been always the outcome of struggle. www.dogma.name">www.dogma.name

January 30, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
David Ruy: Returning to (Strange) Objects
Principal, Ruy Klein, New York; Associate Professor, Pratt Institute, New York
David Ruy is an architect and theorist. He received his Master of Architecture from Columbia University and his Bachelor of Arts from St. John's College where he studied philosophy and mathematics. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design at the Pratt Institute, where he is also the director of The Network for Emerging Architectural Research (NEAR). Ruy Klein examines contemporary design problems at the intersection of architecture, nature, and technology. The firm received the Emerging Voices Award in 2011 from The Architectural League of New York, recognizing the firm as one of the leading experimental practices in architecture today. www.ruyklein.com">www.ruyklein.com

February 6, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Andrew Zago: An Awkward Position
Principal, Zago Architecture, Los Angeles; Visual Studies Coordinator, SCI-Arc
Andrew Zago has over 25 years of professional experience in architecture and education. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan and a Master of Architecture from Harvard University. In addition to teaching at SCI-Arc, where he is coordinator of Visual Studies, Zago is currently a Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a frequent visiting critic and lecturer at schools in the US and Europe. His firm is a recipient of a Progressive Architecture Award, an Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Fellowship Grant from the United States Artists organization. Zago is also a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a member of the National Register of Peer Professionals of the General Services Administration in Washington. Zago Architecture brings open-ended, creative inquiry to disciplinary concerns in architecture. www.zagoarchitecture.com">www.zagoarchitecture.com

February 13, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Tom Gilmore: The City Chair
Partner, Gilmore Associates, Los Angeles
Tom Gilmore was trained in architecture and design, and headed a small architecture firm in New York before moving to Los Angeles in the early 90's. Shortly after moving to LA, Gilmore became involved in real estate and development in the Downtown area. In 1998, Gilmore began to contemplate the effect that a new residential population would have on an otherwise moribund Downtown. He formed his own development firm, Gilmore Associates along with his Partner, Jerri Perrone. Gilmore's vision of a vibrant urban community would largely be developed along with the proposal and passage of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance in 1999. Gilmore's goal of creating a new, vibrant, and sustainable Downtown led him to purchase a number of abandoned historic buildings, all of which are located in Downtown Los Angeles, and converted them into mixed-use loft developments which have now been designated the "Old Bank District." As the first developer to utilize the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance in Los Angeles, Gilmore is recognized as a driving force in the redevelopment of Los Angeles' urban spaces and a major catalyst for Downtown's revival and great residential boom. www.gilmoredev.com">www.gilmoredev.com

February 20, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Ben Van Berkel: Architecture and its Future
Co-founder & Principal, UNStudio, Amsterdam/Shanghai
Ben van Berkel is the co-founder and principal architect of UNStudio in Amsterdam and Shanghai. UNStudio is a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. Current projects include restructuring the station area of Arnhem, the Raffles City mixed-use development in Hangzhou, a dance theatre for St. Petersburg and the design and restructuring of the Harbor Ponte Parodi in Genoa. Currently he is Professor of Conceptual Design at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt and was recently awarded the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor's Chair at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Central to his teaching is the inclusive approach of architectural works integrating virtual and material organization and engineering constructions. www.unstudio.com">www.unstudio.com

March 6, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Eric Owen Moss, Raimund Abraham Lecture
The Man from the Country Where No One Else Lives
Principal and Lead Designer, Eric Owen Moss Architects, Los Angeles; SCI-Arc Director
Eric Owen Moss was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.  He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Los Angeles. He holds Master Degrees in Architecture from both the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University. Eric Owen Moss Architects was founded in 1973. The office, located in Los Angeles, is currently staffed with 25 professionals designing and constructing projects in the US and around the world. The firm has garnered over one hundred design awards from Progressive Architecture magazine, the American Institute of Architects, and others. Moss was honored with the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999. He received the AIA/LA Gold Medal in 2001. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and was a recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003. In 2004, he received the Dedalo Minosse International Prize in Milan, and in 2007, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize.  In 2011 he again was awarded the Dedalo Minosse International Prize for the Art Tower in Los Angeles. Also in 2011, he was awarded the Jencks Award by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).  In 2012, Moss received the AIA?LA 25 Year Award for the Petal House. There are 15 published monographs on the Eric Owen Moss office, including three by Rizzoli and one by Monacelli Press. Most recent are Eric Owen Moss - The Uncertainty of Doing (Skira, 2006); Eric Owen Moss - Provisional Paradigms (Marsilio, 2007); Eric Owen Moss - Construction Manual, 1988-2008 (AADCU Press, 2009); and Eric Owen Moss, l Maestri dell'Architettura (Hachette, 2012). Moss continues to build, teach, lecture and exhibit around the world. He first taught at SCI-Arc in 1974, and was appointed director in 2002. He has held chairs at Yale and Harvard universities, and appointments at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, the Royal Academy in Copenhagen, and the UAE. www.ericowenmoss.com">www.ericowenmoss.com

March 13, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Keller Easterling: Extrastatecraft
Professor, Yale School of Architecture, New York
Keller Easterling is an architect, writer and professor at Yale University. Her books include Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades (MIT, 2005) and Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America (MIT, 1999). A forthcoming book, Extrastatecraft: Global Infrastructure and Political Arts (Yale University Press, 2013), examines global infrastructure networks as a medium of polity. Repeatable formulas and spatial products make most of the space in the world now; not only buildings but also entire cities have become spatial products that typically reproduce free zone world cities like Shenzhen or Dubai. Space has become a mobile, monetized, almost infrastructural, technology, where infrastructure is not only the urban substructure, but also the urban structure itself.
 
March 20, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Tod Machover: Mediated Music: Robotic Operas, Guitar Hero, Collaborative Symphonies and Beyond
Composer; Professor of Music & Media, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge
Called "America's Most Wired Composer" by the Los Angeles Times, Tod Machover is the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media at the MIT Media Lab, where he also directs the Opera of the Future Group. He is known for his boundary-breaking compositions and for designing transformative technologies for music. His hyperinstruments-smart performance systems to enhance artistic expression-have been created for virtuosi from Yo-Yo Ma to Prince, been used to introduce musical creativity to amateurs of all ages and to promote health and well-being, and have served to launch successful products such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Machover is particularly well known for his radical operas, including the "robotic" Death and the Powers-touring worldwide since its 2010 premiere at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, under the patronage of Prince Albert II. Machover has received numerous prizes and awards and was Finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Music. He is currently working on A Toronto Symphony, a musical collaboration with the entire city of Toronto, to be premiered there in March 2013.

March 27, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Todd Gannon: Prelude to the Confederacy
Cultural Studies Coordinator, SCI-Arc, Los Angeles
Todd Gannon is a registered architect and writer based in Los Angeles. He received Bachelor of Science and Master of Architecture degrees from Ohio State University and earned his Ph.D. from UCLA. He taught at Ohio State, UCLA, and Otis College of Art and Design before joining the faculty at SCI-Arc in 2008. Gannon's research focuses on the history and theory of late 20th-century and contemporary architecture. His published books include The Light Construction Reader (2002) and monographs on the work of Morphosis, Bernard Tschumi, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, and others. His essays have appeared in Log, The SAGE Handbook for Architectural Theory (2012), and elsewhere. At present, he is researching Thom Mayne's Architecture Gallery, the first gallery in Los Angeles dedicated solely to architecture, which featured the work of Frank Gehry, Morphosis, Studio Works, Frederick Fisher, Eric Owen Moss, and others in 1979. The research will culminate in a major exhibition and symposium at SCI-Arc in spring 2013, A Confederacy of Heretics: The Architecture Gallery, Venice, 1979, funded by the Getty Foundation as part of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. initiative.

April 3, 7pm in the W. M. Keck Lecture Hall
Ingeborg Rocker: Recursion: Aesthetics + Logics of Computation
Associate Professor of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Cambridge
Ingeborg M. Rocker was appointed Associate Professor of Architecture at Harvard in 2011, after serving as assistant professor there since 2005.  She teaches in the core architecture studio sequence, coordinates the 2nd semester M.Arch 1 core studios, and leads the GSDigital workshops. She also gives courses and seminars on contemporary architectural theory and manufacturing techniques. Rocker received a Diploma in Architecture from the Rheinisch-Westfaellische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Germany, a Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, and a Master of Arts from Princeton University. She has taught at Princeton and University of Pennsylvania, as well as was a visiting scholar at Humbold University in Berlin (2001-2002). At Princeton, Rocker presented her Ph.D. titled "Emerging Structures: Information Aesthetics and Architectures of the Digital Medium," which examined the influence of information theory and early computer technology on the discourse and production of architecture in postwar Germany. Rocker's theoretical work is devoted to questions regarding the impact of media on the perception, production, and thinking of architecture. As a designer and teacher of design, she deploys computer modeling as a tool for giving form to theoretical hypotheses in a didactic way. Rocker's ongoing research has been widely publicized through numerous international magazines and books.


EXHIBITIONS

January 18—March 3, 2013 in the SCI-Arc Gallery
AQUEOTROPE
Marcelyn Gow + Ulrika Karlsson
Servo Los Angeles / Stockholm
Opening Reception: Friday, January 18, 7pm
Exhibition Discussion: Friday, February 1, 7-9pm
Architect Marcelyn Gow and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss discuss the exhibition

Aqueotrope explores the roofscape as a site for the development of synthetic architectural systems that are informed by and integrate systems of organic matter. The project proposes an architecture that has the capacity to embrace entropic tendencies and exploit the latent potential of energetic exchanges—in this case the transfer of moisture through an architectural medium and its effects on more extensive ecologies. Aqueotrope reconsiders the extensive green-roof typology as an immersive roofscape and focuses on amplifying its hydrodynamic potential. The emergence of cusp and contour in the roof tile is activated for its role as a water shedding or channeling device. The material properties of ceramics with varying degrees of porosity and surface articulation are coupled with a morphology of protuberant forms in order to perform as hydrophilic and hydrophobic constituents of a roofscape designed to subtly tamper with atmospheric effects in its specific environment and conjure the potentials of an architecture that embraces the fluxion of matter.

servo Los Angeles and servo Stockholm are a design collaborative invested in the development of architectural environments integrating synthetic ecologies with shifting material states and electronic information infrastructures. Both offices explore the potential of networks as a way of organizing the practice and as a site of architectural research. As the name servo suggests, the practice engages sites where information and energy is transposed as it crosses from one system or circuit, to another, producing an architecture that acts as a spatial interface between physical locales and more extensive information flows. Recent projects include exhibition design for Bonniers Konsthall, the design of a private residence in Stockholm, and a proposal for a hydrodynamic vegetated roofscape in Cancun. servo's work has been exhibited widely, notably at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Centre Pompidou, Archilab, Artists Space, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the Storefront for Art and Architecture and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) and is in the permanent collections of SFMoMA and the FRAC Centre. Recent publications include a monograph entitled Networks and Environments and projects in Digital Architecture Now, Hatch and The New Mathematics of Architecture. www.servo-la.com">www.servo-la.com

Aqueotrope is supported in part by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Additional support is provided by the Pasadena Art Alliance.


March 29—July 7, 2013 in the SCI-Arc Gallery and SCI-Arc Library Gallery
A Confederacy of Heretics: The Architecture Gallery, Venice, 1979
Curated by Todd Gannon, Ewan Branda and Andrew Zago; Exhibition design by Zago Architecture
Opening Reception: Friday, March 29, 7pm
Exhibition Discussion: Friday, April 5, 7pm
Todd Gannon, Ewan Branda, Andrew Zago and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss discuss the exhibition

June 14—15, 2013 in the W.M. Keck Lecture Hall
A Confederacy of Heretics Symposium with Barbara Bestor, Ewan Branda, Peter de Bretteville, Annie Chu, Todd Gannon, Frederick Fischer, Hsinming Fung, Coy Howard, Wes Jones, Jeffrey Kipnis, Eugene Kupper, Eric Owen Moss, Michael Rotondi and Andrew Zago. Keynote lecture by Thom Mayne.

This SCI-Arc-hosted exhibition and symposium examines the pivotal role played by the temporary gallery held in the home of architect Thom Mayne for several months in 1979. Each week the space showcased the work of an emerging architect or group, including Eugene Kupper, Roland Coate, Frederick Fisher, Frank Dimster, Frank Gehry, Peter de Bretteville, Morphosis (Thom Mayne and Michael Rotondi), Studio Works (Craig Hodgetts and Robert Mangurian), and Eric Owen Moss, thus becoming a crucible for contemporary architectural culture in L.A.

Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A. celebrates the city's modern architectural heritage through exhibitions and programs at arts institutions in and around Los Angeles starting in April 2013. Supported by grants from the Getty Foundation, Modern Architecture in L.A. is a wide-ranging look at the postwar built environment of the city as a whole, from its famous residential architecture to its vast freeway network, revealing the city's development and ongoing impact in new ways. www.pacificstandardtimepresents.org

Pacific Standard Time Presents is an initiative of the Getty. A Confederacy of Heretics: The Architecture Gallery, Venice, 1979 is supported by grants from the Getty Foundation. Sustaining support is provided by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Vinyl Institute. The publication is underwritten in part by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. Additional support is provided by the Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.


April 20—May 12, 2013 throughout the SCI-Arc Campus
Undergraduate Thesis Exhibition & Spring Show 2013
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 20, 7pm

On view throughout SCI-Arc, the Undergraduate Thesis presentations and end-of-year display of work from both graduate and undergraduate design studios, and visual, applied and cultural studies seminars offer examples of work by some of the best emerging architects and designers in the country.


July 26—August 25, 2013 in the SCI-Arc Gallery
AND PEDESTALS
Andrew Atwood
Atwood-A, First Office, Los Angeles
Exhibition Discussion + Opening Reception: Friday, July 26, 7pm
Architect Andrew Atwood and SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss discuss the exhibition, followed by an opening reception

Andrew Atwood is a partner in First Office, a design firm based in Los Angeles, California. He is also the founder and director of Atwood-A. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Richmond and an M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. www.atwood-a.com">www.atwood-a.com


--
Public Programs

SCI-Arc exhibitions and public programs are made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles, Department of Cultural Affairs.

Parking and admission are free. No reservations are required. Events are broadcast live online at www.sciarc.edu/live">www.sciarc.edu/live.

SCI-Arc Public Programs are subject to change beyond our control. For the most current information, please visit www.sciarc.edu">www.sciarc.edu or call 213-613-2200.

Parking and Hours
The entrance to SCI-Arc's parking lot is at 350 Merrick Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013, between Traction Avenue and 4th Street in Los Angeles. The SCI-Arc Gallery is open daily from 10am-6pm; the Library Gallery is open daily from 12pm-6pm.

About SCI-Arc
Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is dedicated to educating architects who will imagine and shape the future. It is an independent, accredited degree-granting institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture. Located in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles, the school is distinguished by its vibrant studio culture and emphasis on process. SCI-Arc's approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members, most of whom are practicing architects, work together to re-examine assumptions, create, explore and test the limits of architecture. SCI-Arc faculty and leadership have garnered more than 500 national and international design awards and recognitions, including Progressive Architecture awards, American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and the prestigious Jencks and Pritzker architecture prizes. SCI-Arc is ranked 1st in computer applications and 2nd in design in the 2013 America's Best Architecture Schools survey from DesignIntelligence, and #1 graduate and undergraduate architecture school in Western U.S. SCI-Arc is located at 960 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. www.sciarc.edu">www.sciarc.edu

A photo accompanying this release is available at:
http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=16146

CONTACT:Georgiana Ceausu
         news@sciarc.edu
         213-356-5336
         Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
         960 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013
SCIArcSpring2013PublicPrograms-Image