MoMA
Posts tagged ‘environmental design’
July 28, 2010  |  Intern Chronicles
The Art of Effecting Change: Travels in Los Angeles, Part II

An automobile planter at the entrance to The Metabolic Studio, in downtown Los Angeles

During my first solo trip to the West Coast, which I wrote about in my first blog post, I continued to cover ground across Los Angeles and visited several of the many city museums. In addition to a walk through the LACMA collection and the Hammer Museum, I also managed to visit MOCA where I met up with Ed Giardina, one of five people in the Los Angeles–based collective Finishing School.

June 7, 2010  |  Intern Chronicles
The Art of Effecting Change: Travels in Los Angeles, Part I

Located in downtown Los Angeles, this neon sign quotes Manuel Castells, "Another city is Possible." This artwork was created in 2008 by Lauren Bon and the Metabolic Studio.

Equipped with insider tips and a thorough guidebook, and having arranged several meetings ahead of time, I recently embarked on my first solo trip to the West Coast. As the Kress Fellow in the Education Department at MoMA, I received a travel grant to broaden my knowledge of a specific area of contemporary art. I chose to go to Los Angeles to meet with various artists, collectives, activists, and educators whose practices are guided by socially constructive aims and whose creative projects seek to engage communities in environmental issues.

Protect Me from What I Want


In previous posts we’ve showcased exhibition and wayfinding graphic developments and looked at interesting ephemera created by the Graphic Design department throughout MoMA’s past. This post is about a much more humble, but extremely important, type of design: the warning sign. These signs are created for a wide range of purposes—to prevent overcrowding in the galleries, to prevent damage to the artwork or Museum spaces, to alert people about potentially controversial artworks in the galleries, etc.—and they represent a collaboration between Graphic Design and the Curatorial, Legal, Visitor Services, and/or Education departments. Some signs, such as room-capacity notices, are required by law; others, such as the “warning” notices at the entrance to the Marina Abramović exhibition, are more of a courtesy. They all have one thing in common: they’re designed to make sure each guest has a safe and fun time at MoMA. The slide show above includes just a few of the signs we’ve made over the years. Enjoy… at your own risk!

March 26, 2010  |  Rising Currents
Rising Currents: Opening of the Exhibition

Documentation of the P.S.1 workshop phase of the exhibition

Rising Currents opened to the public yesterday. One of the premises of the exhibition is the value of creative collaboration, and in that spirit we encourage visitors to respond to the exhibition by posting comments on the project website at the kiosk inside the gallery.     

The team leaders participated in a panel discussion moderated by myself and Guy Nordenson on Tuesday evening. We posed several questions to the teams, focusing on the unique format of the workshop phase at P.S.1. Specifically, we asked if the teams gained any valuable insights during the Open Houses, when the public was invited to see work in progress. 

February 23, 2010  |  Design, Rising Currents
Rising Currents: The Hudson

Hudson River, 2006. Courtesy Architecture Research Office

As we get ready to begin the installation of the MoMA exhibition next week, I wanted to take a step back and offer a visual reflection on a central figure in this exhibition. Our thanks to Architecture Research Office for poetically capturing the essence of Rising Currents. Click on the image to view the video clip.

January 19, 2010  |  Rising Currents
From a Grand Finale to the Next Phase

Open House presentations at P.S.1 on January 9, 2010

With a grand finale—attendees filled the room and spilled out into the hall—the five teams presented their final designs to the public at P.S.1 on January 9. As the teams now begin producing materials for the upcoming exhibition at MoMA (and the MoMA team begins preparing the space and the explanatory glue around the project), Rising Currents enters a new phase. Over the next few weeks a number of expert guest bloggers will add their perspectives on an experiment that challenges both the city as we have inherited it and the format of an architectural exhibition in an art museum. The quality of design, innovation, and intense teamwork that has characterized the last two months at P.S.1 has been nothing short of remarkable. The level of interest from city, state, and federal officials has been deeply encouraging and the surge of interest from the public has been spectacular. This week a jury will convene at P.S.1 to pick the finalists for the eleventh annual Young Architects Program (YAP). YAP is an integral part of our department’s programming and while the Rising Currents project is similar in some ways, it is worth noting that it is a true innovation for MoMA and P.S.1, and we believe in some respects, for architecture museums in general.

November 24, 2009  |  Rising Currents
Rising Currents: Meet ARO

In addition to the four teams working at P.S.1, MoMA has invited Adam Yarinsky and Architecture Research Office (ARO) to contribute to the Rising Currents project. ARO’s existing research will offer valuable contextual material for the exhibition, and a proposed solution for a site that encompasses Lower Manhattan. Here ARO gives an overview of their background as well as some initial design concepts and questions. You’ll hear more from all the teams next week.

Architecture Research Office is excited to join the teams of exceptional designers invited by MoMA to participate in Rising Currents. We come to this project after two years of research into the changing climate’s impact on New York City. Funded through the American Institute of Architects’ Latrobe Research Fellowship and conducted with structural engineer Guy Nordenson and landscape architect Catherine Seavitt, this study forms the basis of the Rising Currents workshop and exhibition. Our team studied everything we could about the Upper Bay—from its ecology to its history to its fluid-dynamic character. We learned that an era of elevated sea levels will produce more frequent and more severe storms, a challenge that necessitates a new relationship between the city and the water.

November 3, 2009  |  Rising Currents
Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront
Aerial view of Palisade Bay. Image courtesy of Palisade Bay Team: Guy Nordenson and Associates, Catherine Seavitt Studio, Architecture Research Office

Aerial view of Palisade Bay. Image courtesy of Palisade Bay Team: Guy Nordenson and Associates, Catherine Seavitt Studio, Architecture Research Office

When I joined the Museum two-and-a-half years ago, I wanted to find innovative ways for the Museum to engage with contemporary practice in architecture, landscape, and design-related engineering, techniques that could complement the reactive mode of an exhibition where we show what has been done already, what we admire and is deserving of contextualization and wider publicity. There seem to be many compelling and timely issues that MoMA should be able to respond to quickly, while they are still relevant topics of dialogue and debate, issues that may require that we take the risk of committing to works and outcomes that remain to be seen.

Now we are launching a research laboratory on immediate, pressing issues. This new project is an invitation to undertake original interdisciplinary design research on “glocal” problems: global in implication but local in application and design. With the joint Rising Currents workshop and exhibition, MoMA serves in an almost unprecedented way as the incubator—rather than the mirror—of new ideas.