Public Lectures

Oct 22, 2003: Donald Bates (Lab Architecture Studio), Out of order: in to space

"Donald Bates was born in the Panhandle of Texas in 1953. He studied architecture at the University of Houston, graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture (with honors) in 1978. During undergraduate studies and immediately after graduation, he worked in several offices in Houston and in Europe, acting as project designer on small to medium scale projects. He attended graduate school at Cranbrook Academy of Art, under the tutorship of Daniel Libeskind, gaining a Master of Architecture degree in 1983. Requested to set up a design unit at the Architectural Association, Donald Bates joined with Raoul Bunschoten to form intermediate unit 10 in 1983. After three years, the unit was directed solely by Bates, until 1989. He also organised and managed several lecture and seminar series, often in association with Peter Davidson. In 1987, Bates acted as design assistant to Daniel Libeskind on the prize winning 'City edge' project, as part of the International Bauaustellung (i.b.a), Berlin. in 1989, he was an associate to Libeskind for the competition design of the 'extension to the Berlin museum, with Jewish department' (now known as the Jewish Museum, Berlin). in 1990, Donald Bates founded the laboratory of primary studies in architecture (LoPSiA), a non-accredited, independent school of architecture, with international students from many countries. Operating out of studios in Paris and from the Unite d'habitation by Le Corbusier at Briey-en-Foret, LoPSiA produced a series of conceptual investigations and projects, resulting in prize winning competition submissions and an exhibition of work at Le magasin - centre national d'art contemporain, Grenoble. As a founding member of the association La premiere rue (1989-96), Bates was responsible for the construction and design coordination of two large scale exhibitions at the Unite, with works John Hejduk (1991) and a collaborative piece by Jeff Kipnis with Philip Johnson (1992). Bates has been a guest lecturer, visiting professor and critic, and workshop coordinator at more than 55 universities and schools of architecture throughout Europe, North America and Australia. He returned to the architectural association as academic coordinator for the media studies service unit in 1994-96, working as well with the graduate design studio and general studies program. Most recently, he was guest professor at the School of Architecture, University of Queensland, and as visiting critic for the honors studio, College of Architecture, University of Houston. He acted as RIBA external examiner for diploma and BSC courses at the University of East London (1991-93) and at the Bartlett School of Architecture (1994-97). in 1994, Peter Davidson and Donald Bates formed Lab architecture studio, beginning work on a number of speculative competition entries. In 1995, Lab was a short-list finalist for the Wagga Wagga Civic Centre competition. in the summer of 1996, Lab initiated the Berlin architecture workshop, in association with the Aedes gallery, bringing together 24 students from 16 countries for a three week urban design workshop. in 1997, Lab architecture studio won the international design competition for Federation Square, Melbourne, the largest urban, civic and cultural project currently under construction in Australia. Completion is due mid-2002. Donald Bates is a registered architect, in the state of Victoria, Australia, and is a member of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. He has served as a juror on state design awards panels".

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...in the mind of the architect

Oct 27, 2003: Branko Kolarevic (University of Penn, Dept. of Arch), Bits and bricks

Oct 30, 2003: Peter Eisenman (Eisenman Architects), Talk with pictures

Nov 3, 2003: Enrique Norten (Ten Arquitectos), Recent projects

Nov 17, 2003: Reinhold Martin (Columbia U.), Learning from Silicon Valley

Reinhold Martin received his B.Arch from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a Grad. Dipl. (History and Theory) from the Architectural Association in 1991 and an M.A. in Architecture from Princeton University.

Martin is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. He was a Whiting Fellow in the Humanities from 1996-1997 and also acted as an editor of Grey Room -- a scholarly journal devoted to the theorization of modern and contemporary architecture, art, media, and politics. "Published quarterly, it is devoted to the task of promoting and sustaining critical investigation into each of these fields seperately, into their mutual interactions, and into the mediating forces with which they interact."

His book recently published by MIT: The Organization Complex is a historical and theoretical analysis of corporate architecture in the United States after the Second World War. As it is noted in a book review: "Its title refers to the aesthetic and technological extension of the military-industrial complex, in which architecture, computers, and corporations formed a network of objects, images and discourses that realigned social relations and transformed the postwar landscape. In-depth case studies of architect Eero Saarinin's work for Gerneral Motors, IBM, and Bell Laboratories and analysis of office buildings designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill trace the emergence of a systems-based model of organization in architecture, in which the modular curtain walls acts as both an organizational device and a carrier of the corporate image. Such an image--of the corporation as a flexible, intergrated system--is seen to correspond with a "humanization" of corporate life, as corporations decentralize both spatially and administratively. Parallel analyses follow the assimilation of cybernetics into aesthetics in the writings of artist and visual theorist Gyorgy Kepes, as art merges with techno-science in the service of a dynamic new "pattern seeing." Image and system thus converge in the organization complex, while top-down power among many media technologies, supplies the patterns--images of organic integreation designed to regulate new and unstable human-machine assemblages".

Read more about Reinhold Martin.