© Design Institute, University of Minnesota
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April
27 - 28, 2007
Design
and its Publics: Curators, Critics and Historians at the University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis, with Ole Bouman, Director, Netherlands
Architecture Institute
For the
first time, the Design Institute (College of Design) and the
Department of Art History (College of Liberal Arts) are joining
forces to present an international conference on the state of
contemporary architecture and design discourse. In two days
of conversation, our distinguished speakers will offer reciprocal
reflections on architecture and design criticism and curatorial
practice, contrasting the perspectives from North America and
Europe.
Design
and Its Publics: Curators, Critics, and Historians will take
place on Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, 2007, 12pm - 6pm
in Rapson Hall Auditorium, in the College of Design, 89 Church
Street, Minneapolis, MN.
On the first day, the invited critics and historians will offer
their assessments of the significance of Minneapolis's new public
architecture within the larger sphere of a global architectural
culture, and the role of critical writing and mass media in
shaping this culture.
On the
second day, the invited curators/museum directors will describe
how they, too, shape public perception of design and architecture
through their curatorial strategies and acquisitions policies,
exhibit installations, and museum education programs.
Each group
will serve as interlocutors for the other, in panel discussions
on both days, which will be moderated by the co-organizers,
Janet Abrams, Director, Design Institute, and Steven F. Ostrow,
Chair, Department of Art History, along with Tom Fisher, Dean,
College of Design. For more details on the context for this
conference, and the likely presentation and roundtable topics,
scroll down below the speaker list.
DAIP is
made possible in part by funds from the Donald R. Torbert Lecture
Fund at the Department of Art History and the Scholarly Events
Fund at the College of Liberal Arts. Additional generous support
is provided by the Rockwell Group, New York.
This event
will be free and open to the public, and admission is first-come,
first-served by email application to design@umn.edu with 'DAIP'
in subject.
Speakers:
FRIDAY
APRIL 27 (12pm - 6pm)
Critics
and historian assess Minneapolis's new public architecture
- Frances
Anderton, host, DnA: Design and Architecture, KCRW 89.9 FM,
and KCRW.com, Los Angeles
- Ole Bouman,
Director, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam, and
editor-in-chief, Volume
- Jean-Louis
Cohen, Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture,
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York
- Margaret
Crawford, Professor of Urban Design and Planning Theory, Harvard
Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, MA
- Maarten
Delbeke, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent
University, Belgium, and Leiden University, The Netherlands
- Suzanne
Stephens Deputy Editor, Architectural Record, New York
- Olivier
Touraine, Touraine Richmond Architects, Venice, CA; Visiting
Professor, UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design,
and Columbia University, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning
and Preservation.
SATURDAY APRIL 28 (12pm - 6pm)
New curatorial
strategies for architecture and design
- Paola Antonelli,
Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of Modern
Art, New York
- Barry Bergdoll,
Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum
of Modern Art, New York
- Brooke
Hodge, Curator of Architecture and Design, Museum of Contemporary
Art, Los Angeles
- Joseph
Rosa, John H. Bryan Curatorial Chair of Architecture and Design,
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
- Zoe Ryan,
Neville Bryan Curator of Design, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
- Deyan Sudjic,
Director, Design Museum, London; formerly architecture critic,
The Observer
- Henry Urbach,
Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
DESIGN
AND ITS PUBLICS: the background context
In the past
few years, Minneapolis has experienced a renaissance in the
sphere of public architecture, with the opening of Herzog and
de Meuron's Walker Art Center expansion, Michael Graves' addition
to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Cesar Pelli's new Minneapolis
Central Library and Jean Nouvel's Guthrie Theater. New projects
are also in the works, including the MacPhail Center for the
Arts, Minnesota Shubert Performing Arts and Education Center,
and Frank Gehry's addition to his earlier Frederick R. Weisman
Art Museum on the University of Minnesota campus.
Minneapolis
has, therefore, become a magnet for contemporary public architecture,
with corresponding attention not just from architectural critics
in scholarly and trade journals, but in general-readership magazines
and newspapers, across the country and around the world. The
city's architecture is clearly a 'hot' topic, but its larger
implications and consequences are only just beginning to be
considered.
Several
recent symposia and conferences — for example, Architects
Shape the New Minneapolis , the 2003-2004 series sponsored by
the Weisman Art Museum — focused on the new public buildings
during their planning and construction, and featured their architects
in dialogue with local critics and educators.
Design and
Its Publics will move the discussion in new directions by focusing
on the reception, significance, contextualization and presentation
of these new buildings by architectural critics and historians,
writing both for scholarly and general audiences.
Rather than
focusing exclusively on museum architecture (as the past symposia
did) or simply providing a forum for architects to present their
projects, this symposium will offer a stocktaking, as well as
a look forward. It will offer a broad critical assessment of
Minneapolis's new public buildings, analyzing them as exemplars
of a global phenomenon whereby individual cities seek to raise
their cultural and economic profile by hiring internationally-renowned
architects to add signature works to their skylines.
Meanwhile,
a crop of recent curatorial appointments in architecture and
design has effected a 'changing of the guard' at some of the
most influential museums in the U.S. and Europe. These new curators
will set new agendas for these institutions, significantly shaping
how architecture and design are articulated to diverse audiences.
Now is a propitious moment to gather this group of opinion-leaders,
to hear where they think architecture and design are heading.
How will
these new directors and curators shift consciousness of design
— among practitioners and the public — through their
exhibitions, publications, and gallery/museum environments?
In light of the histories of many museums, and the 'canons'
of design with which they have become synonymous, to what extent
can this new generation of curators really innovate, and turn
their respective institutions in new ideological directions?
How will they approach the curatorial categories of Architecture
and Design: are these still distinct areas, or are such departmental
distinctions beginning to become obsolete? How has the recent
emergence of 'immaterial', digital artifacts and interactive
design affected both the form and content of both temporary
exhibitions and permanent collections?
These are
some of the issues to be addressed at Design and Its Publics,
in individual keynote presentations, and in the roundtable discussions
that will draw together the ideas generated in the papers, and
provide opportunities for dialogue between audience and speakers.
Contact:
Janet Abrams, Director
Design
Institute
University of Minnesota
Northrop Memorial Auditorium
Room 308
84 Church Street, S.E.
Minneapolis MN 55455
Tel.: 612-625-3373
design@umn.edu
http://design.umn.edu
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