Iwan Baan

Dutch photographer Iwan Baan is known primarily for images that narrate the life and interactions that occur within architecture. Born in 1975, Iwan grew up outside Amsterdam, studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and worked in publishing and documentary photography in New York and Europe. Iwan Baan’s love for photography goes back to his twelfth birthday, when his grandmother gave him his first camera. After his studies in photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, Baan followed his interest in documentary photography, before narrowing his focus to record the various ways in which individuals, communities and societies create, and interact within their built environment. With his combined passion for documentary and space, Baan’s photographs reveal our innate ability to re-appropriate our available objects and materials, in order to find a place we can call our own. Examples of this can be seen in his work on informal communities where vernacular architecture and placemaking serve as examples of human ingenuity, such as his images of the Torre David in Caracas – a series that won Baan the Golden Lion for Best Installation at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. With no formal training in architecture, his perspective mirrors the questions and perspectives of the everyday individuals who give meaning and context to the architecture and spaces that surround us, and this artistic approach has given matters of architecture an approachable and accessible voice. As the inaugural recipient of the Julius Shulman award for photography, today, architects such as Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Diller Scofidio & Renfro, Toyo Ito, SANAA and Morphosis turn to Baan to give their work a sense of place and narrative within their environments. Alongside his architecture commissions, Iwan has collaborated on several successful book projects such as Insular Insight: Where Art and Architecture Conspire with Nature, Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities and Brasilia & Chandigarh – Living With Modernity. He recently contributed to Portman’s America: & Other Speculations, edited by Mohsen Mostafavi; Baan’s work from the book is featured in a concurrent exhibition at the GSD, and he will discuss this work in his lecture. Photo: A look upward inside John Portman’s Hyatt Regency Atlanta, one of the photographs Iwan Baan contributed to Portman’s America

Luisa Lambri, with Mark Lee

Luisa Lambri is an artist currently based in Milan.

For nearly two decades, Lambri has examined the relationship between space and the human experience through the medium of photography. Her early work expressed a desire to depict constructed spaces in non-figurative ways and to highlight architectural details that in their form suggest abstraction. As a result, many of her photographs are situated in a place between representation and abstraction and can be understood as a perpetual reconsideration of space and its effects on human life.

For many years an investigation into the history of Modernist architecture, especially private residencies, was of particular interest to the Lambri. The photographs from this early period rarely presented a building with the intent of objective representation but rather tried to subvert and deconstruct the authority of many of the 20th century’s most iconic buildings through a process of abstraction. In these photographs, Lambri focused on details such as doors, windows or staircases as conduits between the inside and the outside and as possibilities for movement. The concentration on details like ceilings, floors, windows or wall patterns resulted in abstract images that often make it impossible to say where a photograph was taken, which building the artist worked in or what architect designed it. The artist repeatedly stated that these earlier works could be understood as self-portraits devoid of her physical presence exploring female identity within spaces mostly constructed by men.

Over the last decade, Lambri’s interest in structures and spaces has broken from the confines of architecture as she started to look at other practitioners in the field of the visual arts who were similarly intrigued by space and abstraction. Her photographs of works by artists connected to Minimalism and the Light and Space movement as well as Latin American abstraction, particularly Neo-Concretism, have occupied her practice and taken the work away from only exploring architecture to a wider consideration of form, space and abstraction. While minimal and reductive in style the photographs are highly personal and interrogate, in equal parts, our physical and psychological existence as humans.

For this event, Lambri will present an overview of her work, with particular attention to her investigations of geometric and organic abstraction. Mark Lee, principal of Johnston Marklee & Associates and co-Artistic Director of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, will introduce Lambri–a participant in the Biennial–and they will engage in a conversation following Lambri’s lecture.

Luisa Lambri was born in 1969 in Como, Italy, and currently lives in Milan. Her solo exhibitions include presentations at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; the Menil Collection, Houston and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh among many others. In 1999 she was awarded the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Art Biennial for her presentation in the Italian Pavilion.

Mark Lee (MArch ’95) is a principal and founding partner of the Los Angeles-based architecture firm Johnston Marklee. Since its establishment in 1998, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 30 major awards. A book on the work of the firm, entitled HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE, was published by Birkhauser in 2016. This followed a monograph on the firm’s work, published in 2014 by 2G. Mark has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the Technical University of Berlin, and ETH Zurich. He has held the Cullinan Chair at Rice University and the Frank Gehry International Chair at the University of Toronto. The firm’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Menil Collection, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Architecture Museum of TU Munich. Together with partner Sharon Johnston (MArch ’95), Mark Lee is the Artistic Director of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Jonathan Franzen, “So Do We Just Give Up on Nature?”

Jonathan Franzen is the author of a series of novels that have been highly praised as masterpieces for their acute observations and relentless analyses of American culture. He has been identified as a Midwesterner since he was catapulted to fame by his novel The Corrections (2001), the story of a family with often-cited parallels to his own upbringing in Webster Groves, Missouri; yet the city was a focus of his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City (1988), set in St. Louis, and his second, Strong Motion (1992), set in Boston. Franzen’s other books include How to Be Alone (2002), a volume of essays; The Discomfort Zone (2006), a memoir; Farther Away (2012), a nonfiction collection; and The Kraus Project (2013), his translations of short pieces by Austrian satirist Karl Kraus. In 2010, when his novel Freedom came out, Franzen’s portrait appeared on the cover of Time magazine, which hailed him as the “Great American Novelist.” Franzen’s most recent novel, Purity (2015), has been adapted for television as a series for Showtime, beginning in 2017. His lecture will be hosted by Diane Davis, Charles Dyer Norton Professor of Regional Planning and Urbanism, chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, and—like Franzen—a St. Louis native.

Okwui Enwezor, “All the World’s Futures: Curating in a Time of Crisis”

Okwui Enwezor is director of Haus der Kunst, Munich. In 2015 he was director of the visual arts for the 56th Venice Biennale. He has also served as artistic director of several other international exhibitions, including Documenta 11 in Kassel, the Paris Triennale 2012, the 7th Gwangju Biennale, the 2nd Seville Biennial, and the 2nd Johannesburg Biennial. He is the former dean of academic affairs and senior vice president of the San Francisco Art Institute, and he has also served as visiting professor at Columbia University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Enwezor was Kirk Varnedoe Visiting Professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University in 2012 and Global Distinguished Professor at the Department of Art History at New York University in 2013.

Michael Rock, “Attention Disruption Disorder”

“One of the essential challenges of design is establishing spatial, commercial, conceptual, or ideological coherences in the cacophony of contemporary experience. But if each coherence requires a battle for attention, are we winning or losing? Are we making things better or aggravating the very conditions we’re trying to alleviate?” Michael Rock is a design writer and founding partner of 2×4, a multi-disciplinary design consultancy that works with cultural and commercial clients such as Prada, Nike, Apple, and OMA/AMO from its offices in New York, Madrid, and Beijing.

Jeff Koons

Internationally recognized artist Jeff Koons is widely known for his iconic sculptures Rabbit (1986) and Balloon Dog (1994–2000), as well as his monumental floral works Puppy (1992) and Split-Rocker (2000). His artwork, often depicting everyday objects, explores themes of self-acceptance and achieving transcendence through the senses. Since his first solo exhibition in 1980, Koons’s works have been shown in major galleries and art institutions throughout the world. Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (2014–15) was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and traveled to the Centre Pompidou Paris and the Guggenheim Bilbao. His most recent exhibition was at Almine Rech Gallery’s new London space (October 4, 2016—January 21, 2017). Koons lives and works in New York City.

Muji chairman Masaaki Kanai and product designer Naoto Fukasawa

In 1980,  Seiji Tsutsumi, a cultural intellectual and founder of the Saison Group, joined with other creative minds of his time in Japan to investigate and pursue an advanced consumer society at the structural level. The outcome of their research was the concept “mujirushi” (“unbranded”) and the value “ryohin” (“products of good quality”). Ryohin Keikaku is committed to upholding these ideas and to further thought about what it means to live a pleasant life, for the citizen of Japan and the citizen of the world. This event, which marks the opening of Boston’s MUJI flagship store, will feature presentations by Masaaki Kanai, chairman and representative of Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd., and Naoto Fukasawa, product designer at Naoto Fukasawa Design and member of MUJI’s design advisory board. 1980 年の日本で、セゾングループの総帥であり文化人でもあった堤清二氏と氏のブレ ーンであった日本を代表するクリエイター達が目指したより良い消費社会とより良い 生活者の像が、無印という立場と良品という価値観を生み出しました。私達はその思想 を継承・探究し、日本にとどまらず世界に向けて「感じ良いくらし」について市民の中 から考え続けています。 “MUJI: The Antithesis of Consumerism and the Search for a Better Way of Living” Masaaki Kanai,chairman and representative of Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. Masaaki Kanai entered Ryohin Keikaku in 1993 after working for Seiyu Stores (presently Seiyu GK). As a longtime general manager of the household division in merchandising, he contributed to the growth of Ryohin Keikaku by directing the household division, a main pillar of its sales. Later, as managing director and general manager of sales headquarters of Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd., he undertook structural reforms of the company. In February 2008 he became president and representative director; in May 2015 he advanced to his present position as chairman and representative director. Since his career at Seiyu, he has been involved in sales and merchandising for “MUJI.” Since September 2009, he has held the position of president and representative director of IDEE Co., Ltd., a group company of Ryohin Keikaku. He is working on improving the corporate value of whole Ryohin Keikaku group companies. “Objective Thinking” Naoto Fukasawa, product designer, Naoto Fukasawa Design Naoto Fukasawa collaborates with the world’s leading companies and brands in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Scandinavian countries, and Asia, meanwhile consulting locally for leading companies in Japan. His expertise is broad and he works in various fields and categories of design. He is a codirector of Japan’s first design museum, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, and director of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum; he serves on the design advisory board of MUJI. He was chairman of the Good Design Award in Japan from 2010–2014.

David Netto: “Designing Interiors (The Part They Forgot to Tell You About)”

Architecture, landscape, urbanism . . . we are at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, which takes an enlightened and comprehensive view of “designed” environments and how they interrelate. But—David Netto GSD ’97 asks—how many of you have ever been taught how to make a furniture plan? How to light a room? The secrets of proportion and texture, and the breaking of rules in animating an interior? These are questions Netto has never found a satisfactory answer to in school—any school; one only learns about them from experience in the workplace. The practical truth is that how a project is perceived is key to how it is received—and essential to whether or not it gets published, written about, and given a fair trial after its transition from an abstract hypothetical to real life.

Netto has worked as an interior designer for decades and has written about architecture and design history for just as long. He professes to have learned as much from writing about the work of others as from formal education in design. His latest book is about the French designer François Catroux, who since 1968 has innovated and excelled in a career of nearly fifty years with no formal design education whatsoever (he credits Philip Johnson as a formative influence and is presently working with Diller Scofidio & Renfro on an apartment in New York). In the course of his talk, Netto will address the importance of interiors in the success of architecture and his observations on how this gets accomplished, based on what he has learned in his  work as a design journalist.

Rouse Visiting Artist Program: Reiko Sudo

A renowned “weaver of new ideas,” Reiko Sudo is co-founder, current CEO, and design director of Nuno Corporation of Tokyo. Nuno is widely recognized as one of the world’s most innovative textile companies, known for its use of cutting-edge technology to reinterpret the techniques, materials, and aesthetics of traditional textiles. Sudo and her design team, together with the company’s skilled weavers and dyers, have greatly broadened the parameters of contemporary design in the industry, experimenting with an eclectic array of materials, ranging from silk, cotton, and polyester to hand-made paper and aluminum, and with finishing methods that include salt-shrinking, rust-dyeing, and caustic burning. Sudo has taught at Musashino Art University and Tokyo Zokei University, where she was appointed professor in 2007. Six volumes of the Nuno Nuno Books series have been published, and Sudo’s work is in the permanent collections of several prestigious museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, in New York; the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London; and the National Museum of Modern Art Craft Gallery, in Tokyo.

Geoff Dyer

English author Geoff Dyer takes liberties with the boundaries of conventional literary genres such as novel and travel narrative, fiction and nonfiction. Subtle, and frequently observational in its narration, his prose moves between the personal and general and often inspires his readers to take stock of their own tendencies. Dyer won the 2009 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel for Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; not long after, he was named GQ Writer of the Year. His books encompass a broad range of subjects: The Ways of Telling (1988) is a study of art critic John Berger that is an early clue to Dyer’s concerns with issues of perception; But Beautiful (1991) is a study of jazz; The Missing of the Somme (1994) dwells on memory and World War I; Out of Sheer Rage (1997) considers D. H. Lawrence; Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It (2003) describes a trip to the East; The Ongoing Moment (2005) is about photography; his collection of essays and reviews titled Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (2011) won a National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism; and then there is Another Great Day At Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (2015). White Sands, a collection of travel essays and meditations on some fundamental questions of existence, was published in 2016 .

Dyer is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015. He currently lives in Los Angeles, where he is writer in residence at USC.