Talk on the “Visionary” at the “Instruments for Urban Production” symposium hosted by the Chicago Architecture Foundation in conjunction with the book launch of The Petropolis of Tomorrow, April 25, 2014, 6pm.
Talk on the “Visionary” at the “Instruments for Urban Production” symposium hosted by the Chicago Architecture Foundation in conjunction with the book launch of The Petropolis of Tomorrow, April 25, 2014, 6pm.
Chicagoisms gallery talk at the Art Institute of Chicago, April 24, 2014, 6pm.
“Chicagoisms” exhibition headlines the Chicago Tribune Arts Section: “Small Gallery Stuffed with Big Architectural Ideas” by Blair Kamin
Book launch event with panel discussion and reception at the Graham Foundation, April 5, 2014, 2pm.
Introduction by Sarah Herda (Director, Graham Foundation), followed by a lecture on the publication by Eisenschmidt, talks by Penelope Dean, Ellen Grimes, Sam Jacob, and Mark Linder, and a closing panel discussion moderated by Jonathan Mekinda.
Co-organizer and curator of Chicagoisms at the Art Institute of Chicago, April 24- December, 2014. Exhibition design by Studio Offshore (Eisenschmidt) in collaboration with graphic designer Matthew Wizinsky.
The exhibition builds on the premise of the book Chicagoisms. Revisiting the characteristics, attitudes, and mentalities of the city’s past, it mines the history of Chicago to define principles of architectural action and urban engagement: Vision Shapes History, Optimism Trumps Planning, Ambition Overcomes Nature, Technology Makes Spectacle, and Crisis Provokes Innovation. These Chicagoisms are also deployed here as springboards for new experiments as local and international teams of architects conceived visions inspired by the city that project as models from an array of historical imagery, together constructing a panorama of alternative urban worlds.
In collaboration with architectural historian Jonathan Mekinda and graphic designer Matthew Wizinsky, and with contributions by Bureau Spectacular, DOGMA, MVRDV, ORG, PORT, Sam Jacob Studio, Sean Lally/Weathers, UrbanLab, and WW.
Chicago Reader publishes interview and book review of “Chicagoisms.”
“The New Visionary,” a talk at the Opening Keynote Session at the AIAS Forum in Chicago: “Prospects for an Evolving Profession,” Fairmont Chicago, December 30, 2013, 4pm.
Lecture on “Chicagoism” at Mies’ IIT Crown Hall, October 25, 2013, 12:30pm.
Contributing author and lead-editor of Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation (Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess/Park Books, 2013).
Chicagoisms is a collection of essays on the various roles that Chicago has played as a catalyst for the exchange of urban and architectural ideas. In a series of original essays, a diverse roster of distinguished and emerging historians, theorists, curators, and architects explores the different ways that Chicago has influenced the evolution of the architectural discourse in the US and around the world. The book involves 28 authors in a collective interrogation of Chicago as a springboard for architectural and urban speculation. The aim is instigate a new way of thinking about the city’s influence on the global architectural discourse. Contributions include: a preface by Stanley Tigerman; essays by Penelope Dean, John Harwood, David Haney, Mark Linder, Igor Marjanović, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, and Albert Pope; project commentaries by William Baker, Barry Bergdoll, Aaron Betsky, Robert Bruegmann, Pedro Gadanho, Ellen Grimes, Sandy Isenstadt, Sam Jacob, Sylvia Lavin, Mark Lee, Andres Lepik, David Lewis, Bart Lootsma, Winy Maas, John McMorrough, Brett Steele, Kazys Varnelis, Sarah Whiting, and Mirko Zardini; as well as my essay, “No Failure Too Great,” a commentary on the circle interchange, entitled “Automatic Urbanism,” and an introduction co-authored with Jonathan Mekinda. Published by Scheidegger & Spiess / Park Books, the volume was first presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2013, is currently at the Leipzig Book Fair, and available in stores worldwide and in the US through distribution by the University of Chicago Press. You can order it here.
Over the duration of the exhibition City Works, the models traveled throughout the gallery, visiting different parts of the panorama’s visionary history, and, finally, came together to create a new collective project of the city – one that is intended as Provocation for Chicago’s Urban Future. Continue Reading →
Gallery Talk, at the occasion of the exhibition City Works: Provocations for Chicago’s Urban Future at the Expo 72 Gallery, September 18, 2013, 5:30pm.
Designer and curator of City Works: Provocation for Chicago’s Urban Future currently on display at the City of Chicago’s Expo 72 Gallery (72 E. Randolph Street, Chicago). May 24 – September 29, 2013
City Works was previously exhibited at the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice (2012) and has now returned to the city of its origin. The exhibition re-envisions a series of urban environments that are typical for Chicago in order to examine alternatives to the way architecture engages the city. In collaboration with David Brown, Studio Gang Architects, Stanley Tigerman, and UrbanLab / Sarah Dunn & Martin Felsen (who each produced one large models 12′x3′), the installation sets out to find potentials for spatial, material, programmatic, and organizational invention within the city. The four models are surrounded by a 160′-long panorama that shows a visionary city … a drawing entirely composed of historical unbuilt visions for the city of Chicago (created by Eisenschmidt and his team at the Visionary Cities Project). In addition, an iPhone app links the visionary drawings on the wall to the existing city by locating the different schemes and presenting vital information about the projects. Over the duration of the exhibition, the models will travel throughout the gallery, visit the different parts of the city’s visionary history, and, finally, come together to create a new collective project of the city – one that is intended as Provocation for Chicago’s Urban Future.
Produced first for the 13th Architecture Biennale in Venice (2012), a redesigned and expanded version of the panorama is currently on display at the city of Chicago’s Expo 72 Gallery, measuring 160′ in length.
The Atlantic reviewed the Phantom Panorama Exhibition & App.
A collaboration between the Visionary Cities Project and the Museum of the Phantom City (Cheng + Snyder) was selected for the Spontaneous Interventions exhibition to present an iPhone app that broadcasts the unbuilt visionary plans for Chicago. Chicago Cultural Center, May 24 – September 1, 2013 (previously at the Venice Architecture Biennale).
The Visionary Cities Project developed an iPhone app in collaboration with Cheng+Snyder (www.chengsnyder.com). This app not only visualizes the large amount of visionary proposals for the city of Chicago but also accompanies the Visionary Chicago Panorama at the exhibition City Works in order to give access to the many projects in the drawing. While the panorama composes a parallel unbuilt city within the confines of the gallery, the iPhone app makes connections to the existing city outside. Here, knowledge about these schemes escapes the gallery and ventures into the city. It allows users to locate and visualize past utopian schemes while traveling through Chicago, with the goal of encouraging playful urban speculation in the present. Download the free iPhone app here.
City Catalyst: Architecture in the Age of Extreme Urbanization is now also available for iPad.
Chapter in Once Upon a Place, eds. Susana Oliveira and Pedro Gadanho (Lisbon: Caleidoscópio, 2013), p. 121-31. Continue Reading →
Invited speaker at the National Conference of the American Planning Association, Chicago, April 15, 2013 [a talk, intended as a provocation to planning].
Panel discussion and interview on the exhibition “City Works” for the Venice Architecture Biennale at the Arts Club of Chicago, December 4, 2012. The panel was moderated by Sarah Herda (Director of the Graham Foundation). Continue Reading →
Public lecture for the official lecture series at John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, November 15, 2012.
Book Launch of City Catalyst at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (September 22, 2012, 1pm) and Launch Party at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture (October 5, 2012, 6pm).
Guest-editor and author with Architectural Design, # 219, September / October 2012.
The discipline’s failure to engage the city productively has devastating consequences that simultaneously diminish the role of architecture and trivialize the city. This issue of AD, then, proposes a new architecture–city relationship beyond outright resistance or unconditional embrace. It suggests rethinking the city as a catalytic realm of invention and a space of possibilities. Contributors include: Kunlé Adeyemi/NLE, Edward Denison, Sarah Dunn and Martin Felsen/UrbanLab, Keller Easterling, Daniela Fabricius, Adriaan Geuze/West 8, Sean Lally/Weathers, Jesse LeCavalier, Jürgen Mayer H, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss/Normal Architecture Office, OMA, Kyong Park, Albert Pope, Michelle Provoost and Wouter Vanstiphout/Crimson, Robert Somol, Ron Witte/WW, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto/Atelier Bow-Wow, and Bernard Tschumi (interview by Alexander Eisenschmidt). Including my contributions: “Stranger the Fiction: A Mission Statement” (introduction), “The City’s Architectural Project: From Formless City to Forms of Architecture,” and “Importing the City into Architecture: A Conversation with Bernard Tschumi” (interview). You can order it here.
Organizer and chair of the international conference on the state of visionary urbanism, in collaboration with and hosted at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, 10am-6pm, September 22, 2012 (over 200 attendees, 3 panels, 15 speakers, 3 moderators). Event is featured in full length at Radio WBEZ-NPR. Continue Reading →
Video installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, September 10 – 23, 2012.
Excerpts of the movie were screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2012) and the Chicago Architecture Foundation (2012). duration: 6 min
Video interview at the 13th Venice Biennale about the curation of City Works, August 2012, aired on September 2012 at La Biennale Channel [4 min].
Chapter in August Endell 1871-1925: Architekt und Formkünstler, eds. Nicola Bröcker, Gisela Moeller, Christiane Salge (Berlin: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2012), p. 326-335; a collection of essays on the works of August Endell. Reviewed in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Kunstchronik. Continue Reading →
Designer and curator of City Works for the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice (August – November, 2012).
Exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, June 21, 2012 – May, 2013.
VC: Catalog of Visionary Architectures for Chicago was part of the official reference display at the Museum of Contemporary Art for the exhibition Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity, June 30 – Sep 23, 2012. Continue Reading →
Design and implementation of a new format for reviews in architecture at the Journal of Architectural Education, 2012-13. For the first time, the section is curated around themes rather than media.
Review of Alexander D’Hooghe’s The Liberal Monument: Urban Design and the Late Modern Project, in the Journal of Architectural Education, issue 65:2, May 2012.
Keynote lecture at the Manufactured Landscapes conference, Chicago, May 19, 2012.
“The Non-Concept City,” a discussion on urbanism with Edward Mitchell, including Robert Bruegmann, Ellen Grimes, Tim Mennel, Jonathan Miller, organized by New Projects, Chicago, March 13, 2012. The exchange was published in the Journal of Architectural Education #66.1, October 2012. Continue Reading →
Review of Urban China: Informal Cities, in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 71:1, March 2012, p. 129-31. Continue Reading →
Published in Four Conversations on the Architecture of Discourse, eds. Aaron Levy and William Menking (London: AA Publications, 2012). Continue Reading →
Public lecture at The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, February 7, 2012.
Review of S. Kwinter’s Requiem: For the City at the End of the Millennium, in the Journal of Architectural Education, issue 65:1, December 2011, p. 96-97 Continue Reading →
Public lecture at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Chicago, November 2, 2011.
Invited speaker at Symposium on Architectural and Urban History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (organized by Robert Bruegmann), October 28, 2011.
Public lecture for the official evening lecture series at the School of Architecture, University of Texas at Arlington, October 12, 2011.
An exhibition that recorded, compared, analyzed, and extrapolated Chicago’s architectural dreams and nightmares, developed as part of the theory course Architectural Visions of the City (venue: UIC Architecture Ramp Gallery, April 28 – Sep 2, 2011).
Public lecture hosted by the Center for Architecture in Philadelphia, April 15, 2011.
Lecture at Between Experience and Representation: Cities in an Area of Tension, international conference, Radboud University of Nijmegen, Holland, March 10, 2011 (presented in absence).
Lecture, “Theorien der Raumanschauung und die Entstehung einer neuen Metropole,” was cited in Matthias Schirren’s article “Freiheit und Ordnung: Der Philharmonie Osteingang,” in Scharoun, exhibition catalog, 2011.
Invited Round table participant at Northwestern University, Chicago, December 3, 2010 (other participants: Barry Bergdoll, Andreas Beyer, Neil Levine, Martin Bressani, Robert Bruegmann, and Harry Mallgrave; organized by David Van Zanten).
Colloquium chair, and speaker in collaboration with and hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, October 24, 2010 (participating speakers: Daniela Fabricius, Jiang Jun, Jesse LeCavalier). The colloquium is prompted by the exhibition Urban China, curated by Jiang Jun who is editor of the China-base magazine of the same name. The event sets out to detect global perspectives on the informal, not bound to a particular geography, economy, or period but, instead, defining the informal/formless city as a condition that is with us everywhere. It implies that the “informal” is always part of that strange environment we call “city.” Continue Reading →
Panel chair at the ACSA West Central Fall Conference Flip your Field, University of Illinois at Chicago, October 21-23, 2010.
Speaker at the Once Upon a Place – International Conference on Architecture and Fiction, on the occasion of the Lisbon Triennial of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal, October 12, 2010.
Review in Multimedia at the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 69:2, June 2010, p. 262-65. Continue Reading →
Lecture at the August Endell: Die Berliner Jahre, Freie Universität Berlin, Kunsthistorisches Institut, April 24, 2010. Continue Reading →
Session co-chair in collaboration with Jonathan Mekinda at the Annual SAH Meeting, Chicago, April 22, 2010 (speakers included Penelope Dean, John Harwood, Igor Marjanovic, and Joanna Merwood-Salisbury). Continue Reading →
Invited speaker at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, lecture on the work of Studio Offshore, July 7, 2009.
Lecture at the Informal Cities Conference, Royal University College of Fine Arts Stockholm, Sweden, September 6, 2008. Continue Reading →
Lecture at the SAH Annual Meeting (panel: The Limits of Community), Cincinnati, OH, April 24, 2008.
Lecture at the SAH Annual Meeting (panel: Creative Misreading), Pittsburgh, PA, April 9, 2007. Continue Reading →
Essay in Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, vol. 11, issue 1, March 2007, p. 71-80.
Studio Offshore began its collaborative practice in 2006. For more information about design projects visit www.studio-offshore.com.
Invited speaker at the Spiegel Symposium, structured around an exhibition of Barry Le Va, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia, PA, March 17-18, 2005 (speakers included David Lewis and Mark Wasiuta, moderated by Detlef Mertins; with keynote lectures by Greil Marcus and Barry Le Va). Continue Reading →
Photograph © Ralf Schuhmann
Introduction to Ralf Schuhmann’s exhibition catalog Endstation Etzweiler (Bonn: Offener Atelier Katalog, 2004). Continue Reading →
