Curated by Yael Hameiri SAINSAUX
In Honor of Diane Lewis (1951 –2017)
Conceiving the Plan presents a series of post-2020 proposals by a range of international architects, considering Civic Space in contemporary terms. It asks the following questions: How can civic spaces be imbued with nuance? In what ways does such a quality persist in the city? Can one discuss intimacy in architectural terms? The projects were first exhibited as part of the Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2021. They inaugurate dialogues with the late architect and longtime Cooper Union Professor Diane Lewis. Nuance and Intimacy in the spatial challenges of civic space are investigated as a tribute to Lewis’s legacy and touch on the literary, ecological, social, and metahistorical dimensions of architecture. Thus, the exhibition and publication provoke critical approaches to the discipline as well as its education.
The exhibition is accompanied by a SKIRA publication that also includes essays by Barry Bergdoll and Daniel Sherer.
Projects include:
Angel Alley by David Turnbull; The City in the House by Preston Scott Cohen; Healing Object: Unmasking Novel Domestic Urbanism by Mersiha Veledar; Landscape as a Support by Dieter Dietz, Teresa Cheung, Patricia Guaita, Lucia Jalon Oyarzun, Ruben Valdez, and Daniel Zamarbide; Parasituation [Edinburgh] Waverley Gardens by Dorian Wiszniewski, Kevin Adams, Neil Cunning, Chris French, Maria Mitsoula, Paul Pattinson, and Leo Xian; The Siskiyou Trail: A Right to Return by Uri Wegman and Laila Seewang; Star Stories by Sotirios Kotoulas; Time Clouds: Playground and Archaeology Garden by Georg Windeck;
Timescape Garden by Peter Lynch, Anna Asplind, Martin Heidesjö, and Mats Nordahl; Trading, Tracing, and Telling: The Alchemies of Exchange by Catherine Ann Somerville Venart; TS 1: A Talking Station for Tempelhofer Feld by Holger Kleine; and Will We Live Together? Redeeming the Hotel House Ghetto Tower into the Ideal Vertical Village by Pippo Ciorra, Marco D’Annuntiis, Luca Di Lorenzo Latini, Sara D’Ottavi, Gilda Tormenti, Claudia Vagnozzi, and Martina Pompei