Decoding Asian Urbanism
Helms Design Center, January 30 - March 12
How do you display the intensity of life in a crowded Asian city to Angelenos, used to uncrowded streets, spacious homes and solitary car commutes? Take a small room, make it smaller and fill it with throbbing sounds and images of jostling crowds and buildings. To powerful effect. That is what Farooq Ameen and the City Design Studio team have done to bring alive the themes of "DeCoding Asian Urbanism," or DAU, a book authored by Ameen, the Malaysian architect Ken Yeang and historian Kenneth Frampton about -- in Frampton’s words -- the “gargantuan ever-expanding Asian conurbations such as Tokyo, Mumbai, Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur etc. which at 15 million plus can no longer be regarded as cities in any traditional sense.”
Now DAU has been turned into a show at the design center at Helms Bakery District, presented by the A+D Museum. Ameen, designer Caglar Gokbulut, filmmaker Miriam Kuhlmann, Swinerton construction and other talents have transformed a showroom into a maze of tight spaces, each displaying vivid photographs and some amazing kaleidoscopic films, by Kuhlmann, aimed at capturing the energy and density of the new Asian insta-cities.
Visitors
can find respite from the intentional cacophony in a calming, scented
room expressing the repose still found in nature, as well as inspiration
for ways to cope with such meteoric growth in singular projects described as "urban acupuncture" by Ameen, by designers including Ken Yeang, Charles Correa and Steven Holl, that endeavor to inject greenways, open space and a sense of human connection in an often alienating environment.
These megalopolises seem on one hand to be very distant from the L.A. experience; consider that the city of Los Angeles has a density of around 8500 people per square mile while Delhi, India, packs in almost 30,000 people per square mile. But there is much to learn from their manic expansion as L.A. grapples with its own struggles over growth. Besides, many of the cities on display are our neighbors on the Pacific Rim and we are inextricably bound to each other, as Kuhlmann reminds us in her striking image of a container ship gliding across our shared ocean (above).
On March 3, at 6pm, Helms invites you for a reception and conversation about the issues raised by DAU. I will lead a dialogue with Farooq Ameen, creator of DAU; Astrid Haryati, architect, planner and former deputy on public policy for Indonesia’s Minister of Trade; and Kulapat Yantrasast, Thailand-born architect and thought-leader in the fields of architecture, art, and sustainable design.
Decoding Asian Urbanism is the first outing for A+D Museum since it closed its space in the Arts District in June, 2020. It is at the Helms design center at 8745 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90232.
Get details here.
Stories Untold: Black Modernists in Southern California
Symposium at Modernism Week, Palm Springs, February 21, 1:30 - 5 pm
Paul Revere Williams has rightly received a renaissance of interest in his work. But what about the lesser-known Black architects who worked for him or were inspired by, or succeeded, him? Find out at Modernism Week, the annual smorgasbord of midcentury design talks and tours that will run for ten days from Feb 17- Feb 27, 2022 in Palm Springs.
A highlight this year is a symposium entitled Stories Untold: Black Modernists in Southern California, taking place Monday afternoon, February 21 (President's Day). Speakers will unpack the stories of architectural talent yet to receive their due. The L.A. Times’ Tyrone Beason, author of this article about Black Californians in the Coachella Valley, will talk with Jarvis Crawford and Deiter Crawford, leaders of Palm Springs Black History Committee and host of the Caravan Thru African-American History Palm Springs, taking place on the morning of the 21st. They will bring alive the legacy of the Black builders and designers who helped create the glitzy desert resort, even as they were denied entry to many of its hotspots.
Gail Kennard (daughter of Robert Kennard), Nastassja Lafontant, architectural and landscape designer, and architect Roland Wiley will talk with historian Alan Hess about the “Circle of Paul Williams,” contemporaries and successors of Williams including Ralph Vaughn (Chase Knolls, Lincoln Place), Roy Sealey (Belmont Shores Clubhouse), Robert Kennard and Arthur Silvers (Mafundi Building), Norma Sklarek (Pacific Design Center), James Garrott (John W. Bean Residence, shown above) and many more.
The symposium will conclude in the optimistic present with architect Drake Dillard, of Perkins + Will, who will present his firm’s project Destination Crenshaw, the “unapologetically black” linear art park currently under construction alongside the new light rail in the Crenshaw District.
I helped organize this symposium in my role as boardmember at Modernism Week (in consultation with the Palm Springs Black History Committee and members of SoCalNOMA), and hope very much that it will be an interactive experience where attendees can share stories "untold" about the Black imprint on modernism in the Southland.
Get information and tickets here.
Soil: The Critical Zone
Soil is the nurturer of all living things but now 75% of the earth’s source of fertility is now depleted, by industrial farming, manufacturing and urban growth. So soil is the focus in 2022 for NAHR, or the Nature, Art and Habitat Residency, located in the still soil-rich hills of the Taleggio region in the foothills of the Alps in northern Italy.
NAHR, founded by L.A.-based architect Ilaria Mazzoleni, is inviting people with ideas for academic or artistic meditations on soil to apply for residencies, taking place in June. California-based applicants are eligible for support from Helms Bakery District, which will sponsor one Fellow with the costs of arts production, travel, and per diem expenses. That recipient will present their work in the fall of 2022 at Helms Bakery District.
Click here for details.
ICYMI
The architecture and construction industry creates a colossal carbon footprint. Is the solution more “green” buildings or to not build at all? Get some answers in this article I wrote for Sierra magazine, inspired by the work of last year's Pritzker Prize winners Lacaton & Vassal.
