It is with great pleasure that we introduce you to the premier issue of eVolo. This architecture and design journal was initially conceived in 2004 by a group of graduate students at Columbia University in New York City. Following graduate school, inspired and idealistic, many of us felt the need to reach further and look more closely at ourselves and our specific strengths to figure out what we could uniquely contribute to the field of architecture. Unfortunately entering the work force revealed a scary truth; the world of architecture is a tough place, making little room to accommodate all the unique contributions that so many brilliant young architects were so eager to make. This, specifically, is the inspiration for eVolo; to provide a forum for showcasing the most innovative, the most avant-garde designs that will define architecture in the twenty-first century.
So I introduce to you, eVolo, a work ... read more
NEW GEOGRAPHIES #1: AFTER ZERO
Editors-in-Chief: Neyran Turan, Stephen Ramos.
Design disciplines are challenged by the condition of the zero point. “Zero-context,” “cities from scratch,” and “zero-carbon” developments all force designers to address important questions regarding the strategic relevance and impact of a design intervention. As much as the zero point presents naďve innocence and embodies contradictory notions—such as crisis versus abundance or context versus model—it also creates a ground for doubt, self-critique, and rejuvenation for architecture and urbanism. As projects, indeed entire “new” cities, are built before they can even be imagined and then repackaged and replicated as models for any context, what do these projects suggest for the design disciplines? Beyond a focus on the vast scales and ambitions of these projects, it is important to see them as symptomatic of a much broader condition within contemporary architecture and urbanism. Along w... read more
The creators of Reef, Rob Ley and Joshua Stein, discuss the work of their practices and their investigations into the use of emergent technologies in architecture.
Rob Ley is the founding principal of Urbana, an architectur... read more
Excerpt from IP phone conversation between Federico Díaz and Jeff Kipnis, April 22, 2009.
"Art and architecture, have over time, produced a highly specialized discourse.
… But let’s go back to this question of the Resonance sculptures. If you think of them as simulations, then the effect is to be fascinated by how close they imitate something else. But I have a different concept that I use, but I am not trying to impose it on this work. I have this idea that is called “re-origination”. I want to suggest the concept of Federico that helps me understand his work, it’s basically called re-origination. The idea is something like this: Let’s say you read a book, and you make a movie of it. Then I’m interested, first of all in the power of one medium to represent another medium ... read more
Films and videos on modernist architecture
Curated by Hajnalka Somogyi
With films by:
Bernd Behr, Johanna Billing, Michael Blum, Josef Dabernig, Domčnec, Miklós Erhardt, Terence Gower, Pierre Huyghe, Lars Laumann, Ińigo Manglano-Ovalle, Caitlin Masley, Ursula Mayer, Anna Molska, Sadie Murdoch, Pia Rönicke, Anri Sala, Caspar Stracke and Judi Werthein
Modernist architecture has been a strong, recurring theme in contemporary art. Way after its rise and fall, it still seems to bug artists, both as art and as social program: it provokes mixed feelings of fascination, nostalgia, rejection and disillusionment. Gets Under the Skin offers a selection of critical responses to the ideas and products of modernist architecture that neither buy the recent “grand narrative” of its wholesale failure nor join the uncritical celebration and fetishization of its masterpieces.
