Event

We all assume that to quit architecture is to fail. Yet the vast majority of those who stick it out are sucked into a world of disempowered subservience to big business. Becoming an architect squanders the creativity and energy of those who are attracted to study architecture in the first place, robbing society and the individual of their potential. There is a better way. We should all quit architecture before it's too late.

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The Korean artists, MOON Kyungwon & JEON Joonho have teamed up with the design collective, Urban-Think Tank, based at ETH Zürich, to launch the newest version of the ongoing project, “News from Nowhere.” Past versions have appeared in documenta (13) in Kassel and the Sullivan Galleries of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 2013. The “News from Nowhere: Zürich Laboratory” establishes an interdisciplinary and participatory platform to discuss the urgent social, political and economic issues. Located in the Migros Museum for Gegenwartskunst, the “News from Nowhere” exhibition brings together artists, architects, designers, scientists, and documentarians in order to discuss issues facing contemporary society. 

Come to the Table is an installation made of reconfigurable elements that serve as a platform for dialogue. The construct is a framework to engage local architects, artists and thinkers in questioning What is the State of the Art of Architecture Today? Confirmed Panelists include Penelope Dean (Associate Professor, UIC), Vedran Mimica (Associate Dean, IIT)
and Ben Nicholson (Professor, SAIC).

This lecture will discuss Terreform ONE, a non-profit design group that promotes smart design in cities. Through intensive projects, the group aims to illuminate the environmental possibilities of New York City and inspire solutions in similar areas globally. The group develops solutions for local sustainability in energy, transportation, infrastructure, buildings, waste treatment, food, and water. These solutions are derived from the interface of design, computation and synthetic biology.

In collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Cal Poly LA Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design, Caroline Bos, co-founder and Principal Urban Planner of UNStudio (www.unstudio.com), will speak about recent architectural, infrastructural and masterplan projects carried out by UNStudio. She will also introduce UNStudio’s Urban Unit and the approach to knowledge sharing recently adopted by the practice to enable the development, application and dissemination of practice related research.

An architecture lecture series society at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and the Built Environment in Aberdeen, Scotland. The society, 57°10, has been running for 27 years and invites guest lecturers to the school to talk about the ideas and projects explored by their practices. The society prides itself in being student led; providing lectures that will in turn inspire our future architects, perhaps on topics out-with the discourse of the school.https://www.facebook.com/FiftySevenTenSociety

Stanley Tigerman will discuss his 2015 New Titanic along with the opening of a special exhibit that includes a selection of past and recent work featuring the 1978 “Titanic” photomontage.

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Co-Organised with Singapore Institute of Architect (SIA), ArchXpo 2016 will be it's 3rd Installation in the coming year.

Monuments are deliberate gestures—objects or structures created to commemorate an event, person or era. Their meaning is usually imposed, and they often serve as focal points for aspirational civic and political attributes like valor and sacrifice, or to underscore a foundational political narrative. But their meaning can transform, changing over time as the relevance of their symbolism ebbs and flows due to social and political shifts. Like monuments, architecture and photography are also inflected with a grace of intention, and both have the ability to commemorate or represent a nation, event, time or place. The act of photographing monuments and buildings transforms them, sometimes revealing some of the original qualities and more closely evoking the response that they were originally intended to have. And photographs have an inherent memorial quality. This group exhibition examines the work of international artists, some of whose work addresses actual monuments, some whom look at architecture and its relationship to memory and how its importance and symbolism can shift over time, and others approach the idea of the future monument.

'Next year sees the opening of Habitat III, the environmental congress held every twenty years by the United Nations. For this event, a manifesto is being prepared about the design of cities. It aims to replace the guidance given by Le Corbusier and others nearly a century ago, in document they called "The Charter of Athens." The new Charter of Athens addresses issues emerging in the 21st Century about environmental crises, the uses of technology and big data, and the challenge of social inclusion. The lecture serves as an introduction to this modest proposal.'

China Design Week (CDW) supported by the China Britain Business Council (CBBC) is pleased to host this timely conference to discuss the possibility of increasing creative links between China and the UK.

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Institute of Russian Realist Art in participation with the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, the “Academia Arco” International Fund, The Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism of the Italian Republic, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Italian Embassy in Moscow, the Ingosstrakh insurance company, Promsvyazbank and Lomonosov Moscow State University present the exhibition Russia on the Road. 1920 – 1990, which is dedicated to theme of transport, one of the most important themes for the artists of XX century.

Sergei Tchoban, managing partner of the architectural firm nps tchoban voss with offices in Berlin, Dresden, and Hamburg, SPEECH in Moscow and founder of the Tchoban Foundation – Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin and Andrew Zago, partner and founder of the firm Zago Architecture in Los Angeles will talk about the architectural hand- and computer generated drawings in architectural practice today. The importance of a drawing as an official language of an architect, as well as collecting and displaying it.

The panel will be moderated by Wim de Wit, Adjunct Curator of Architecture and Design at the Cantor.

Even though China has become the world’s second largest economy and the world’s largest manufacturing base, the term ‘made in China’ still has negative connotations.

Transforming “Made in China” to “Created in China” is a key challenge for Chinese enterprises urgently in need of world-class creative design. What are the best methods, models and practices of designing? What is the value and the role of creativity in emerging markets? What are the contemporary ideas in design thinking? Are they appropriate in the Chinese context? What is “good design?”

Jacob A. Riis and Vilhelm Hammershøi were Danes of the same generation who took up the challenge of understanding modernity in radically different ways. Riis left Denmark for America to become the nation's leading advocate for the urban poor. He was a media-savvy journalist who used words and pictures to make a compelling case for reform. Hammershøi, by contrast, was a Copenhagen-based aesthete whose mysterious paintings of bourgeois domestic interiors suggested the psychological experience of modern life. Join two art historians and experts on Riis and Hammershøi, Bonnie Yochelson and Thor Mednick, for an exploration of their work. After their presentations, Ambassador Anne Dorte Riggelson will lead a conversation about Riis and Hammershoi's contrasting lives and perspectives.

From photographer Bob Munro comes a new project called Tectonic Poetry. Resulting from an ongoing interest in urban scenes, architecture and the built environment, it focuses on the architectural surrounds of Melbourne’s Federation Square Atrium.

Let your inner designer out and explore the playful side of architecture at this hands-on program for adults. Join other kids at heart and build amazing structures with BSA Space’s LEGO® collection, while enjoying beer, wine, snacks, and conversation. This month’s session is inspired by Canstruction’s 2015 theme: get inspired by Boston!