Wednesday, 7pm
4
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24
A Topology of Everyday Constellations
Georges Teyssot, Cynthia Davidson
Today, spaces no longer represent a bourgeois haven; nor are they the sites of a classical harmony between work and leisure, private and public, the local and the global. The house is not merely a home but a position for negotiations with multiple spheres—the technological as well as the physical and the psychological. In A Topology of Everyday Constellations, Georges Teyssot considers the intrusion of the public sphere into private space, and the blurring of notions of interior, privacy, and intimacy in our societies. Thresholds, he suggests, work both as markers of boundaries and as bridges to the exterior. If the threshold no longer separates public from private, and if we can no longer think of the house as a bastion of privacy, Teyssot asks, does the body still inhabit the house—or does the house, evolving into a series of microdevices, inhabit the body? Join author Georges Teyssot in conversation with Writing Architecture Series and Log editor Cynthia Davidson.
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![February 28 at the bookstore, we hosted a conversation on Civic Action, a publication generated from the art and urban-planning initiative of the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park that engaged four artists to investigate new strategies for community development in the Long Island City neighborhood.
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We were joined by Noguchi Museum director Jenny Dixon, Socrates Sculpture Park executive director John Hatfield, founding principal of WXY Architecture Claire Weisz, along with Wall Street Journal architecture columnist and “Civic Action” editor Julie Iovine.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/3b2e802b99af586afde7c692bd0f6c1f/tumblr_mka7ofyoa21ry3kdro1_1280.jpg)
February 28 at the bookstore, we hosted a conversation on Civic Action, a publication generated from the art and urban-planning initiative of the Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park that engaged four artists to investigate new strategies for community development in the Long Island City neighborhood.
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Thursday, 7pm
4
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11
Allied Works Architecture: Clyfford Still Museum
Brad Cloepfil
The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver is a single-artist institution devoted to the life and work of one of the 20th century’s most influential and enigmatic painters. Designed by Allied Works Architecture, the building is specifically crafted to present Still’s canvasses, and equally, to resonate with the light and landscape of the high prairie and the evolving urban district it inhabits. The firm’s second book, Allied Works Architecture / Clyfford Still Museum reveals the building’s essential character and evolution through a series of essays, models, drawings, details and photographs. On Thursday, April 11th, Allied Works’ founder and design principal Brad Cloepfil will lead a conversation about the ideas and inspiration that led to the museum’s design, and the firm’s efforts to realize a work of architecture that has been hailed as one of the finest art-viewing experiences anywhere.
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On Wednesday, February 13 at Van Alen Books we explored Hong Kong’s dense pedestrian networks through the new publication Cities Without Ground by Jonathan D. Solomon and Adam Frampton, who were joined in conversation by special guest Grahame Shane.
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Thursday, 7pm
4
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4
Project: A Journal for Architecture
Alfie Koetter, Emmett Zeifman, Daniel Markiewicz, Caroline O’Donnell
While young architects once started their careers with commissions for houses or other small projects and gradually attained larger-scale work, the paths toward prominence in architecture today are more diverse. The internet allows architects to reach wider audiences than they ever have, while educational and cultural institutions increasingly offer architects new opportunities for producing work in the forms of temporary installations, exhibitions, and urban interventions. Join the editors of Project for a public conversation with Caroline O’Donnell—principal of CODA, founding editor of Pidgin, assistant professor at the Cornell University Department of Architecture, and winner of the 2013 MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program—on her development and practice in the expanded field of contemporary architecture. The discussion will be featured in the upcoming issue of Project, a recently launched journal investigating critical agendas in architecture and ambitions for the discipline today.
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![Rietveld’s ChairMarijke Kuper & Lex ReitsmaRietveld’s Chair, the first in the Premsela Design Stores series on Dutch design history, provides a detailed look into the work of Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld, from his early training as a cabinetmaker to the legacy of the Red-Blue Chair as an icon of Dutch design and symbol of the De Stijl movement. Now available after the popular first edition sold out in 2011, this book by Marijke Kuper—the world’s leading expert on Rietveld’s work—includes text in both English and Dutch as well as an accompanying DVD documentary by the book’s designer, Lex Reitsma.
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The book is dense with precise information on Rietveld’s construction techniques, an overview of all known examples of the chair, and additional facts on models, measurements, and colors. Yet the book and film together also frame Rietveld’s work within a larger context, exploring his relationship to the De Stijl movement, and the impact of mechanization and automation in his ideas about design. Kuper portrays Rietveld’s vision of a furniture object formed out of simple, distinct forms—a construction of lines, planes and voids that would together form a harmonious whole. The book and film show how Rietveld’s visionary work pushed the boundaries between sculpture and functional object, and how his chair eventually emerged as an iconic work of art in the contemporary context of art auctions and museums.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/b2846c301d2e33ab174789dc2b006598/tumblr_miwflc2t3T1ry3kdro1_500.jpg)
Rietveld’s Chair
Marijke Kuper & Lex Reitsma
Rietveld’s Chair, the first in the Premsela Design Stores series on Dutch design history, provides a detailed look into the work of Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld, from his early training as a cabinetmaker to the legacy of the Red-Blue Chair as an icon of Dutch design and symbol of the De Stijl movement. Now available after the popular first edition sold out in 2011, this book by Marijke Kuper—the world’s leading expert on Rietveld’s work—includes text in both English and Dutch as well as an accompanying DVD documentary by the book’s designer, Lex Reitsma.
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Thursday, 7pm
3
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7
Urgent Architecture
Bridgette Meinhold
The last decade has seen a shocking increase of natural disasters around the world. We can hardly stop these disasters from occurring, but we can work to protect ourselves through stronger homes. Urgent Architecture: 40 Sustainable Housing Solutions for a Changing World is a collection of housing projects from around the world that address these disasters either through emergency shelters and temporary housing as part of relief efforts, or through prefabricated, affordable and adaptable houses built to withstand future catastrophes. At this launch event, join author Bridgette Meinhold, Architecture Editor of Inhabitat.com, and fellow Inhabitat staff for a conversation about the book and the growing importance of the role of architecture in natural disasters.
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On Wednesday, February 6 at Van Alen Books we celebrated Travis Beck’s “Principles of Ecological Landscape Design,” a new book that digs into the science of designing high-performance, resilient landscapes.
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Thursday, 7pm
2
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28
Civic Action
Claire Weisz, Julie Iovine, Jenny Dixon, John Hatfield
As urban planning and civic projects become more interdisciplinary, Civic Action reconsiders the role that artists and cultural institutions can play. The Noguchi Museum and Socrates Sculpture Park engaged four artists—Natalie Jeremijenko, Mary Miss, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and George Trakas—to lead teams to develop new strategies for community development in the surrounding neighborhood of Long Island City. These partnerships yielded an array of innovative and surprising approaches, and also an argument for new urban planning models. Join Julie Iovine, architecture columnist for The Wall Street Journal, in conversation with Noguchi Museum director Jenny Dixon, Socrates Sculpture Park executive director John Hatfield, and founding principal of WXY Architecture Claire Weisz.
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We packed Van Alen Books to capacity last Thursday, January 31, to celebrate Mark Rakatansky’s “Tectonic Acts of Desire and Doubt,” the latest in the Architecture Words series.
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