Events Calendar

Motopia: A New Age for Modular Construction

Admission is free.

Reception to follow.

“The language of design, architecture and urbanism in Los Angeles is the language of movement.”—Reyner Banham

Architecture today rolls, flows, inflates, breathes, expands, multiplies, contracts and searches for its next user. And yet, such architecture is not merely building or product design, but rather recognition of the fluidity of circumstances—the mobility of demographics and information. This event will feature real-world practitioners and multidisciplinary scholars who are preparing for a future continuously on the move.

A range of creative forces behind mobile architecture will come together to examine solutions to current economic, social and environmental concerns in the housing industry; identify emerging technologies and trends; and synthesize recent advancements in design, manufacturing, materials and systems. We will host five eminent practitioners who will discuss strategies that can be adopted or adapted into our own larger communities and lives. Participants will include Allison Arieff, editor at large at GOOD and contributing columnist at the New York Times; Barry Bergdoll, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art; Stephen Kieran, partner at KieranTimberlake; Robert Kronenburg, architect, author and Roscoe Chair of Architecture at the University of Liverpool; and Michael Webb, founding member of Archigram and professor at Cooper Union.

Speaker Bios:

From 2002 to 2006, Allison Arieff was editor in chief of Dwell, and was the magazine’s founding senior editor. She is author of the books Prefab and Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America. She has been featured as an expert on sustainable design for two seasons of the Sundance Channel series Big Ideas for a Small Planet, as well on CNN, NBC News, NPR and KCRW’s DnA: Design and Architecture.

Barry Bergdoll joined the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2007 as the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. Bergdoll was formerly chair of art history at Columbia University, where he taught nineteenth- and twentieth-century architectural history. He has organized, curated and consulted on many exhibitions, including Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling. He recently organized MoMA’s Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, an eight-week architects-in-residence workshop and exhibition that addresses the effects of climate change on New York’s waterfront. He has written for numerous books and magazines, including Architecture, Architectural Record and Artforum.

Stephen Kieran, FAIA, is partner and cofounder of KieranTimberlake, an award-winning and internationally published architecture firm noted for its research and innovative design and planning services. The firm has received over 100 design citations, including the 2008 Architecture Firm Award, the highest honor bestowed on a firm by the American Institute of Architects. KieranTimberlake’s projects include the programming, planning and design of all types of new structures and their interiors, and the renovation, reuse and conservation of existing structures. KieranTimberlake authored Manual: The Architecture of KieranTimberlake, refabricating Architecture and Loblolly House: Elements of a New Architecture.

Robert Kronenburg, RIBA, is an architect and the Roscoe Chair of Architecture at the Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. His research examines portable, ephemeral and flexible architecture. His books include Flexible: Architecture that Responds to Change, Portable Architecture: Design and Technology and Houses in Motion: The Genesis. He is an editor of the Transportable Environments book series. He curated the major exhibition Portable Architecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London, and the touring exhibition Spontaneous Construction.

Michael Webb studied architecture in London, taking seventeen years to graduate from a curriculum that is supposed to take but five. However, a project he designed in the fourth year of his studies found its way into Visionary Architecture, a 1962 exhibition at MoMA in New York. In 1963, he cofounded the Archigram Group, a collection of six young architects rebelling against what they saw as an English architectural scene on life support. For eleven years, an exhibition of the group’s work toured the world. In 1965, Webb came to the United States and has since taught architecture at the Cooper Union, Columbia University and a number of other schools.

Organized by Jennifer Siegal (Architecture).

Background Image: Michael Webb

For further information on this event:
visionsandvoices@usc.edu

Location: May Ormerod Harris Hall, Quinn Wing & Fisher Gallery (HAR) - USC Gin D. Wong Auditorium, Harris Hall 101

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Daria Yudacufski