Design for Visual and Performing Arts Center at UIC on view at Gallery 400, August 10 – 27, 2016; 400 South Peoria Street, Chicago, IL 60607.
design _ URBAN DESIGN FOR UIC VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS CENTER (Finalist)
The new building for the Visual + Performing Arts Center at UIC is conceived as an “Arts Campus,” a nexus between the different departments of the College of Architecture, Design and the Arts as well as between UIC and the city. As such, the architecture of the center is more than just a building, it becomes an urban platform on which the different constituencies meet. It houses a concert hall, theaters, performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, an art school, gallery spaces, and offices.
A collaboration with Sam Jacob Studio (architecture), Alexander Eisenschmidt (Urban Design), Misha Leiner / CoDe (graphic design), Webb Yates (engineering). Continue Reading →
design _ Monument to Missed Opportunities
Visionary Cities Project / Alexander Eisenschmidt with Matthew van der Ploeg, Monument to Missed Opportunities for the 7th Ward, Chicago. Exhibited as part of “50 Designers, 50 Ideas, 50 Wards,” Chicago Architecture Foundation, May 24 – December 1, 2016.
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exhibit _ “COLLECTIVE CITY” AT THE BI-CITY BIENNALE OF URBANISM\ARCHITECTURE
Visionary Cities Project / Alexander Eisenschmidt, Collective City exhibition at the 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen, China, December 4, 2015 – March 1, 2016.
Collective City, explores spatial, organizational, and material ingenuities born out of the forces and pressures of the contemporary city, answered by the architectural amateur, and used by everyone. As such, the exhibition foregrounds an essential terrain instructive for architecture. The examples highlighted here are important to the way the world is built, influential in its capacities to mobilize, and mesmerizing in its strangeness, yet outside the architectural radar. The exhibition documents, organizes, and projects a catalog of existing inventions and tactics found across the globe (often outrageous, sometimes humorous, but always embedded in the here and now) with the ambition to establish a dictionary of ideas that can act simultaneously as a reality-check and sourcebook. We are interested in how the dynamics of global urbanization effectively influence architecture; or to put it more bluntly, how the intelligences of the existing city can be engaged by architecture. From a street-runway intersection in Gibraltar, via the Osaka baseball stadium-turned-model village, to stilt houses in international waters at Biscayne Bay, these examples form a new city that in the exhibition creates a massive urban panorama, describing different forms of architectural urbanism.
design _ 160′ OF CURTAIN
Curtain system design for the art exhibition “Into Body Into Wall” by Maria Gaspar at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago, September-December 2015.
exhibit _ “CHICAGOISMS” AT THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
Co-organizer and curator of Chicagoisms exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Kurokawa Gallery, April 24, 2014 – January 4, 2015. Exhibition design by Studio Offshore (Eisenschmidt) in collaboration with graphic designer Matthew Wizinsky.
120 images, nine models, and five principles. 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.
design _ VISIONARY CHICAGO PANORAMA
Produced first for the 13th Architecture Biennale in Venice (2012), a redesigned and expanded version of the panorama was on display at the city of Chicago’s Cultural Center Expo 72 Gallery, measuring 160′ in length.
exhibit _ VISIONARY CITY IPHONE APP
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.
design _ VISIONARY CHICAGO MOVIE
Excerpts of the movie were screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2012) and the Chicago Architecture Foundation (2012). duration: 6 min
design _ STUDIO OFFSHORE
Studio Offshore began its collaborative practice in 2006. For more information about design projects visit www.studio-offshore.com.