Architect as Goth: Odile Decq to lecture at SAIC/AIADO

Yes, I know it's the 19th, but it's never too late to be adding stuff to the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

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Specifically, on November 27th, the School of the Art Institute, Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects will be hosting a lecture by Odile Decq of Odile Decq Benoît Cornette, Architectes-Urbanistes, the French Goth architect who could be said to be the anti-Richard Meier.

what kind of clothes do you avoid wearing?
anything which is not black.

what I am very interested in when I design and conceive something, is thinking about the close relationship between body and space.

when you think about quentin tarantino, robert altman…the way the camera is in a space or the way the different sequences are organized, films don't explain how you pass from one place to another. you are just 'there' and then you are somewhere else. I like these kinds of transitions…

The above quotes come from interview with the architect in designboom, which has also published some views of her firm's Paris studio.


Odeq's design philosophy can seen in her new addition for MACRO , Museo D'arte Contemporanea Roma, inserted into what was originally a Peroni beer factory, and anchored by a blood-red auditorium structure floating within a larger lobby space.(Great photographs of the construction and finished product at SkyscraperCity here.)

This foyer has been painted in black.  I hesitated in the beginning.  I have to confess I hesitated to do it because I was thinking, do I have to apply to everyone the punishment that I give to me, to be black, but in a way, yes, because of this question of being neutral, with the white.  I was thinking that if I painted  in black, this is another neutral, another neutral color, but it's a stronger one. And this stronger one will have resistance, a stronger resistance for the art, and the art has to be stronger, to be in front. And now they hang art on these walls, and it works very well.

You can see the entire Columbia University lecture from which Decq's quote was taken here.   The Chicago lecture on November 27th will be 6:00 p.m. in SAIC's Columbus Auditorium, 280 South Columbus.

Elsewhere, we've also added an AIA/Chicago/Architect Magazine Arts Club event on the 29th with Chris Sullivan, Building Enclosure Trends: Design, Energy and Codes.

This is also the last week for the exhibition The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank at the Swedish American Museum in Andersonville.  The show closes on Sunday.

Things are sparse this holiday week, but today, Monday the 19th, there's An Te Liu at UIC, and a Chicago Makes Modern book launch with Ben Nicholson and Inigo Manglano-Ovalle at the Graham. Things pick up again next week, so check out the nearly dozen great items still to come on November 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Fuksas, Pecha, Gang, Josef Frank, Iannelli, Millet, Lai, VJAA, Visionary Cities, more - it's the September Calendar of Chicago Architecture Events and Exhibitions

Once more into the breach, dear friends . . .

After taking August off, we've got a very full  September Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

among the highlights:

• Massamiliano Fuksas at the Graham (Tuesday, September 11)
•  Visionary Cities: Urban and Architectural Futures to Come, a day-long UIC School of Architecture conference chaired by Alexander Eisenschmidt with Sam Jacob, Clare Lyster, Sarah Dunn, Robert Bruegmann, Bill Menking and more, at MCA (Saturday, the 22nd)
•  Mikyoung Kim at ITT (Wednesday, the 12th) 

• Jimenez Lai offers a "quasi-bookreading" of his Citizens of No Place at the Graham (Tuesday, the 18th)
• Pecha Kucha Volume 23 with Lee Bay, Kara Kotwas and more, at Martyr's (Tuesday, the 4th)
• David Van Zanten on The Work of Louis Julien Millet at the Second Presbyterian Church (Thursday, the 20th)
• Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos of VJAA at IIT (Wednesday, the 19th)
• Learning from Tristan Sterk, AIA Chicago (Thursday, the 27th)

• Women of Influence: The Achievements of Women in Chicago's Early History, at Häfele America Chicago Showroom (Monday, the 10th)
• Glessner House's 125th Anniversary Gala on (Thursday, the 13th)

•  Secret Spaces Atop Chicago, with author Tony Macaluso, CAF lunchtime. (Wednesday, the 26th)
• Thomas Leslie discusses How Lateral Bracing Influenced Two Generations of Chicago Skyscrapers, lunchtime at CAF (Wednesday, the 19th)
• The White City: A Musical, at Glessner House (Friday, the 28th)

Exhibitions?  In addition to the great Skyscraper show at MCA, Wright's Roots at Expo 72 Gallery , and Unseen City at CAF,  this month we've got openings for ArchiTech Gallery's Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design, The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank at the Swedish America Museum, and, of course, the highly anticipated Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects at the Art Institute.

I'm sure we'll be adding more, but already there's over 50 great events this month.  Check out all the details on the September 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events (and Exhibitions).