Jim Olson: Architecture for Art

Museum of Art at Washington State University

Pulman,

The Museum of Art at Washington State University is organizing "Architecture for Art," the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to the 45-year career of Jim Olson, one of the Northwest's most significant architects.

Founder of the internationally recognized Seattle-based firm, Olson Kundig Architects, Olson has explored artistic, cultural, natural and personal influences in his work. The exhibit will display how these influences have impacted his career, with displays ranging from his notebooks and sketches to stunning large-scale photo displays and models.

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Otto Neurath. Gypsy Urbanism

At a time when contemporary culture is dominated by mass media and we are all glued to many screens, it is fascinating to contemplate the career of little-known Austrian sociologist, Otto Neurath (1888-1945), a polymath whose intellectual and moral compass - forged in the embers of World War I - led him to predict the dramatic growth of the knowledge economy and to develop tools for a universal pictorial language. Ever in the interest of advancing participatory forms of democratic exchange, Neurath was by turn an academic, economic minister, housing administrator, museum director and philosopher of science. He collaborated with the leading planners, designers and artists of his time, - among them Adolf Loos, Josef Frank, Le Corbusier, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and key New Deal intellectuals - and his work had a profound influence on a range of disciplines, including architecture, philosophy, economics, urbanism and graphic design.

On view at the Schindler House from November 4, 2009 through January 31, 2010, the exhibition is loosely divided into three sections. The scene is set with artifacts and ephemera from Vienna's Settler Movement of the 1920s, when Neurath initiated his public career. The centerpiece of the exhibition re-creates works from Neurath's Museum of Society and Economy, the major work of his life.
Eero Saarinen: A Reputation for Innovation

This exhibition is a tribute to Saarinen’s short and brilliant career which was bookended in the Nation’s capital with two iconic buildings: the Smithsonian Gallery of Art, a museum of modern art on the Mall which remained unbuilt and the nation’s first jet airport, Dulles International Airport which was completed one year after his death.

The exhibition is open for public with free admission!
Santiago Calatrava to Speak at Pratt

Renowned architect, artist, sculptor, and engineer Santiago Calatrava will speak about his work and career as part of the School of Architecture’s spring 2010 lecture and events series at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, 2010 in Memorial Hall Auditorium on Pratt’s Brooklyn Campus. The lecture is free and open to the public, however seating priority will be given to Pratt students with valid ID at 5:30 p.m. Members of the public will be admitted at 5:50 p.m. should seating be available.

Calatrava, a native of Valencia, Spain, won his first competition proposal in 1983 for the design and construction of Stadelhofen Railway Station in Zurich, the city where he established his first office. Since then, Calatrava has earned an international reputation for the design and construction of over 55 acclaimed bridges, transportation centers, and educational buildings. Among his notable projects are the Bach de Roda Bridge, Barcelona; Tenerife Auditorium, Canary Islands; the Alameda Bridge and Metro Station, Valencia; the expansion of the Milwaukee Art Museum; and the new Liege-Guillemins TGV Railway Station, Belgium, which opened in September 2009.

Calatrava established his firm’s second office in Paris in 1989, when he was working on the Lyon Airport Station, and opened the firm’s third office in Valencia in 1991 to facilitate ongoing work on the City of Arts and Sciences cultural complex. He closed the Paris office in 2003 and opened an office in New York City in 2004 to be closer to a number of important commissions he received in the United States, including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, New York; three bridges over the Trinity River, Dallas; the expansion of the Denver International Airport; and the first building for the University of South Florida Polytechnic’s new campus, which upon completion will be Calatrava’s first educational complex in the U.S.

Calatrava’s artwork was first exhibited in 1985 with the display of nine sculptures in an art gallery in Zurich. He reached new levels of recognition with solo exhibitions at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The latter exhibition included an installation in the museum’s sculpture garden of Shadow Machine, a large-scale sculpture with undulating concrete “fingers.” He has also exhibited work in various other international venues including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery–Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens; the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; and Es Baluard Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Majorca. Calatrava has received numerous personal and professional honors for his work in architecture. He was named a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 1993; included on TIME Magazine’s “TIME 100” list of the most influential people in 2005; and received the American Institute of Architect’s Gold Medal in recognition of a significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture, also in 2005. He has received 16 honorary doctorates to date and is a permanent honorary guest of the University of Zurich.
Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass

Over the course of his career, Dale Chihuly has revolutionized the art of blown glass, moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture and establishing the use of glass—inherently a fragile but also magical material—as a vehicle for installation and environmental art. This exhibition of new and archival works represents the breadth and scope of the artist’s creative vision over the last four decades.

By 1965, Dale Chihuly was already captivated by the process of glassblowing. Influenced by an environment that fostered the blurring of boundaries separating the various arts, as early as 1967 Chihuly was using neon, argon, and blown glass forms to create room-sized installations of his glass. Although his work ranges from the single vessel to indoor and outdoor site-specific installations, he is best known for his multipart blown compositions. Based in Seattle, Washington, Chihuly works with a team of glassblowers, a process that allows him to work on a grand scale and to explore and experiment with color, design, and assemblage. "Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass" provides an opportunity to see and explore the full range of his artistic achievements by immersing visitors in the beautiful and enchanting environments created through his extraordinary vision.
Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 – 1990

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 – 1990 will include over 250 objects across all genres of art and design. The exhibition, curated by Glenn Adamson and Jane Pavitt, will be the first in-depth survey of postmodern art, design and architecture of the 1970s and 1980s. It will examine how postmodernism evolved from a provocative architectural movement in the early 1970s that challenged the orthodoxies of modernism, to a movement that influenced all areas of popular culture including art, film, music, graphics and fashion.
Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment

Pritzker Prize-winner Kevin Roche is acclaimed for his skillful integration of man-made and natural environments. Drawing on material originally presented at the Yale School of Architecture, the exhibition has been expanded to highlight Roche's contributions to the fabric of New York City, including the Ford Foundation Headquarters and more than four decades of master planning, design, renovations, and new additions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment features original drawings, models, photographs, and ephemera documenting Roche's career, along with extensive video presentations of projects and interviews with the architect.
Events this Weekend: 3.18-21

This weekend, Peter Cook curates an exhibit of the next great architects, the Vitra Design Museum reopens its doors for a new exhibit showcasing modern icons and their influences, the Industry…
House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage

We have all spent time in parking garages, but we rarely stop to think about what they have meant for our cities and ourselves. House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage explores the unique relationship between parked cars and the built environment and encourages visitors to see these familiar structures in a whole new way. A showcase for innovation; a training ground for the 20th century's best-known architects; and now, a new direction for sustainable city planning; the parking garage tells many stories.