
HYBRID FORMAT
Zoom: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/79698685674?pwd=X4D5PUIWO4nF5zy7uDxKwnW09bohgJ.1
Meeting ID: 796 9868 5674 | Passcode: 961138
Room 706, Yale School of Architecture, 180 York St, New Haven, CT, USA



Yale University’s School of Architecture was in the midst of pedagogical upheaval when Louis Kahn joined the faculty in 1947. With skyscraper architect George Howe as dean and modernists like Kahn, Philip Johnson, and Josef Albers as lecturers, the post-war years at Yale trended away from the school’s Beaux-Arts lineage towards the avant-garde. And so, when the consolidation of the university’s art, architecture, and art history departments in 1950 demanded a new building, a modernist structure was the natural choice to concretize an instructional and stylistic departure from historicism.[1] Completed in 1953, Louis Kahn’s Yale University Art Gallery building would provide flexible gallery, classroom, and office space for the changing school; at the same time, Kahn’s first significant commission signaled a breakthrough in his own architectural career—a career now among the most celebrated of the second half of the twentieth century.


The exhibition Social Construction: Modern Architecture in British Mandate Palestine, tracing the influence of international Modernism on the architectural vernacular that developed in Palestine during 1917–48, is on display at the Yale Architecture Gallery from August 31to November 18, 2017. Originally organized by the Israel Museum, in Jerusalem, the show draws inspiration from the extensive research of architects Ada Karmi-Melamede and Dan Price, whose accompanying book, Architecture in Palestine during the British Mandate, 1917–1948, explores not only the functional aspects of this new architecture but also the social values that shaped the defining language of this new architectural style. The original exhibition was curated and designed by Oren Sagiv, chief of exhibition design at the Israel Museum, with Eyal Rozen.

Cloistered by a protective shell of stone, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is one of the world’s foremost collections of rare manuscripts. Opened in 1963, the library is renowned for its translucent marble façade and the world-renowned glass book tower sheltered within – a dramatic arrangement resulting from the particular requirements of a repository for literary artifacts. This unique design, very much in the Modernist lineage but in contrast to the revivalist styles of the rest of Yale’s campus, has only become appreciated thanks to the passage of time; the same bold choices which are now celebrated were once seen as a cause for contempt and outrage.

The J. Irwin Miller Symposium, “A Constructed World,” is convened by Joyce Hsiang and Bimal Mendis in conjunction with the exhibition, “City of 7 Billion,” at the Yale School of Architecture. The philosopher and cultural critic, Peter Sloterdijk, will deliver the keynote address, and Hashim Sarkis, Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT, will deliver the concluding address.

The world is constructed. It is the product of material realities, philosophical concepts, and imaginary ideals. No part of the world remains unaffected by the cumulative impact of human activity. Through complex processes of exploration, habitation, cultivation, transportation, consumption, and surveillance, the world has become increasingly interconnected. According to ongoing scientific research, the world appears to have crossed the threshold of a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. Scientists, geologists, and environmentalists acknowledge that humans are transforming the world at an unprecedented scale. This assertion begs the questions: How is the world constructed? What is the role of design?


Designed and constructed by QASTIC Lab, ‘Balance Through Buoyancy’ is a temporary researchpavilion called “Floatastic” which was designed and built for a private client to serve as a shade pavilion for a wedding ceremony. Situated in Edgerton Park, in New Haven Connecticut (an Olmsted planned landscape), this deployable structure aims to create a floated shelter which avoids imposing any loads to the ground, which traditional structures require. Instead, it proposes a well-fabricated balloon, which is filled with Helium to raise the imposed loads of fabric veils and any possible dynamic environmental loads toward the sky. More images and architects’ description after the break.
