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University of Texas at Austin

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Drawings, images, and models from Kory Bieg and Clay Odom’s Lumifoil, the winning work of the FIU College of Architecture + The Arts Emerging Architects Competition, will be exhibited at the FIU College of Architecture + The Arts, Miami Beach Urban Studios from June to September of 2016. The project is designed as an intervention into the rooftop event space of Bernard Tschumi’s “Red Generator” building at the FIU College of Architecture + The Arts. It was engineered by ARUP and is currently scheduled for installation in December 2016.

Kevin Alter’s professional practice, alterstudio architecture, has been recognized recently with awards and in several publications. The studio received two AIA Austin: 2016 Design Awards, one for their South 3rd Street Residence, and the other for their Cuernavaca residence.

This summer, after fifteen years of dedicated service to The University of Texas at Austin, Dean Fritz Steiner will be leaving the School of Architecture to serve as dean of PennDesign at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater. Elizabeth Danze, UTSOA professor and Associate Dean of Graduate Programs, will serve as interim dean for the school effective July 1.

Gabriel Díaz Montemayor gave a lecture entitled, “Service Studios: Public Space and Academia,” at the VII International Congress on Architecture and Design organized by the Marista University of Merida in the state of Yucatan, Mexico. Montemayor also presented a paper, “Hybrid Ecological and Sustainable Mobility Networks for Northern Mexico,” at the 46th Urban Affairs Association Conference held in San Diego. 

Allan Shearer, Co-Director of the Center for Sustainable Development, authored “Abduction to Argument: A Framework of Design Thinking,” for the current issue of Landscape Journal._ 

Professor Wilfried Wang guest-edited two consecutive issues of the Japanese architectural journal A+U, on the work of Sigurd Lewerentz. Wang also co-curated, with Adjunct Associate Professor Barbara Hoidn, the upcoming exhibition,DEMO:POLIS–The Right to Public Space, at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

 

How to Manage Your Online Scholarly Identity

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Anne E. Rauh, Science & Engineering Librarian, Syracuse University Libraries

What is the first thing you do when you receive an announcement about a speaker or a new colleague joining your institution? Do you want to find out more? I know I do. What happens when you search for yourself online? Do you discover old webpages listing outdated works and previous employers, or a true reflection of you and your work? Today a number of mostly free tools are available to collect and present accurate up-to-date information about scholarly identity.

When librarians and faculty ask me what they can do to curate their online profiles, the first tool I recommend is LinkedIn. With more than 400 million members in 200 countries worldwide, Linkedin allows you to create connections that represent your real-world professional relationships while expanding your network. Although largely a business-oriented social networking tool, Linkedin can serve academics too. Whether interacting with architecture firms, seeking to place students in internships, following alumni as they progress through their careers, or looking to find out more about publishers and material vendors, LinkedIn can help. An established network can help you find employment opportunities, recruit candidates, identify collaborators, highlight achievements, and notify colleagues and peers of job changes and other achievements. However, while LinkedIn does highlight academic work, scholarly identity is not the main focus. For that the internet offers some more specialized tools.

My top recommendation for a tool to profile scholarly work is Google Scholar Citations. This feature of Google Scholar requires very little effort and after initial set up, automatically populates a scholar’s profile with their citations. After logging in using your Google account information and verifying the publications Google Scholar has located are in fact yours, you can add affiliation information and keywords about research interests to enrich your profile. If publications are not automatically populated they can be added manually. Profiles update automatically or can be moderated as new works are published. In addition to a list of publications, Google Scholar Citations shows metrics such as h-index and total number of citations. These profile pages are easily found when searching in Google Scholar.

Scholarly communication practices are changing with websites integrating scholarly publishing and social networking. This does promote interaction and sharing of scholarly materials. Referrals from social media aid in discovery. Two widely used academic social networking tools are Academia.edu and ResearchGate. Academia.edu boasts more than 39 million members and ResearchGate claims over 10 million. Academia.edu users come from all disciplines while the majority of ResearchGate users are from the health and life sciences. Despite its name, Academia.edu is not an institution of higher learning or a consortium of academic institutions but rather a domain name registered before restrictions were placed on the use of ‘edu’. ResearchGate is the largest academic social networking site and does require a referral or institutional affiliation which can be verified. Both tools encourage authors to upload papers and share within their network. Users can also request that authors upload and share papers not currently available. When papers are uploaded, they are attributed and a profile is created showcasing all the authors’ works.

Both tools have received a fair amount of criticism from user communities. Users of ResearchGate complain about the number of system-generated notification emails. Whenever a paper is uploaded, an automatic email is sent to co-authors inviting them to use the tool. ResearchGate has also  been criticized for how it calculates journal impact as well as its auto-generation of author profiles  Both tools are frequently confused for open access repositories and do not fulfill institutional or funding agency requirements to share work. Both sites also encourage authors to disregard copyright agreements, something that publishers are not ignoring. If you are interested in what you as an author can do to retain copyright, see AASL’s October 2015 column post by Amy Dygert.

Your institution may also have solutions to help manage online scholarly identity. At Syracuse University, we have SelectedWorks and Experts@Syracuse. SelectedWorks is a feature of SURFACE, our institutional repository, hosted by Digital Commons. This feature allows authors to profile their work in an organizational format that works for them. It links to content hosted in the institutional repository and allows for uploading and linking of additional content. Experts@Syracuse is driven by Elsevier’s Pure. It connects to Scopus author profiles, and local information such as appointments and grant information is added by the institution. Ask your library or research office if there are similar offerings at your institution.

If you are curious what any of these look like in action, I maintain the following sites:

 

 

From Cross-Americas | Santiago, Chile

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Outgoing President’s Message from Marilys Nepomechie

At the close of an exceptional International Conference in Santiago, on a year that indelibly links Chile to architectural accolades and biennales, it is a special privilege to reflect not only on ACSA’s biennial international meeting, but also on the past year.  

Our presence in Santiago was a first for ACSA. The occasion also marked our first return to South America in nearly two decades, and only the second time in the history of the organization that the international conference was held south of the Equator.  Nearly two years in the making, Cross-Americas: Probing Dis-Global Networks benefitted from tremendous generosity on the part of many. We were honored to work with exceptional partners in our host school, the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile [PUC], and with extraordinary colleagues among our team of academic program co-chairs:  Macarena Cortés and Umberto Bonomo, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile; Alfredo Andia, Florida International University, USA; Dana Cupkova, Carnegie Mellon University, USA; and Vera Parlac, University of Calgary, Canada.  Together, they prepared an outstanding agenda of peer-reviewed papers, projects, keynote presentations, discussions, tours and events.

In yet another first for ACSA, and in an effort to build bridges, not only among academic faculty but also among architecture program leaders and professional practitioners, we inaugurated an Administrators’ / Leadership Track within the academic conference.  For their joint efforts in its organization, we are indebted to Roger Schluntz, Dean Emeritus, University of New Mexico, USA and Emilio de la Cerda, Architecture Program Director, Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile.  Product of ACSA’s yearlong multi-collateral International Task Force, the leadership track invited lively exchange. From across national borders and program profiles, participants shared best practices and unique approaches to our parallel academic and professional endeavors. 

Panels in the international leadership track incorporated valuable contributions from academic administrators in North and South America, as well as from experts and leaders of our collateral organizations in the United States. We are delighted that Thomas Vonier, FAIA, President–Elect of the American Institute of Architects and Secretary General of the International Union of Architects; Kristine Harding, AIA, President of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards; Tamara Redburn, AIA, Director of the National Architectural Accrediting Board and Sharon Matthews, AIA, architectural education and accreditation consultant, all joined our discussions.

Over the course of four days, Cross-Americas drew an international assemblage of architectural scholars, designers, educators and practitioners into rich conversations around themes of our valued commonalities –and of the increasing importance of our articulated differences.  PUC, our host school, nurtures particularly robust ties between its academic programs and the design professions.  Members of its faculty lead some of the most highly regarded creative practices working anywhere in the world today; several joined us for Cross-Americas: Faculty member Alejandro Aravena, 2016 Pritzker Laureate and curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale, focused the opening keynote on the nature and value of architectural education, and on the role of our discipline in advancing social equity. Subsequent keynote speakers, also affiliated with the PUC, showcased the work of significant Chilean design practices, including Pezo von Ellrichhausen, Mirene Elton, Teresa Moller [Landscape Architecture] and Cazú Zegers.

Captured in the titles of its conferences, the past year has been one for high aspirations [Uncharted Territories], sometimes buttressed by invented words: [New Knowledges, Dis-global Networks].  The titles reflect a year of launching new initiatives from a platform of organizational strengths.  Working in multiple modes, ACSA has focused both internally and externally, expanding possibilities for our members in ways that place the organization at the center of opportunity and intelligence in architectural education and practice.  

Leveraging and expanding its powerful capacities, ACSA, in its role as facilitator, has engaged in the development of an increasingly robust infrastructure for networked academic and institutional research –one structured to support the work of faculty scholars and leaders at our member schools. In that context, it has worked to strengthen connections to practice, to the profession, to our collateral partners, and to architecture programs worldwide. 

In its role as convener, ACSA has expanded the scope and purview of its international conference to include sessions focused on program and professional leadership.  It has expanded the content of our annual and fall meetings by partnering with the profession and collateral organizations on research areas of mutual interest, including housing, resilience, and health.  We are pleased that the multi-collateral Education Coordinating Council, outgrowth of the Path Forward Task Force, has begun its joint work.  

Finally, in its role as disseminator of faculty scholarship and creative production, ACSA has expanded venues for peer-reviewed publication by supporting the development of TAD, a new ACSA journal focused on research in the building sciences; and by creating a traveling exhibition of peer-reviewed faculty work.

Our new strategic plan, the first revision of a key governance document in over a decade, was introduced in Seattle, and is now complete.  The 2016-17 Board of Directors will commence its inaugural implementation this summer.  Similarly, the first and second parts of our new board governance structure have been adopted.  The year ahead will be the first with newly constituted executive and program committee structures.

This marks the final edition of my post-conference letters to our membership. It is a special pleasure to welcome Bruce Lindsey to the presidency of ACSA this month, and to begin exciting new initiatives under his leadership. I am deeply grateful to the exceptional colleagues whose work, through our Board of Directors, has advanced the endeavors of the past year.  Each has made the product of our collective efforts more robust and more compelling. I close by expressing my gratitude to Executive Director Michael Monti and to the professional staff at ACSA. Without their support, creativity, and ingenuity ACSA’s work would be impossible.  It has been an enormous privilege and honor to serve as President of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.  I thank you.

 
— Marilys Nepomechie

CATTt: An Anti-Method for Architectural Research

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors

Column by Cathryn Copper, Woodbury University, School of Architecture, San Diego, CA

In the early 1990’s, when the Internet became easily accessible, Gregory L. Ulmer, Professor of English at the University of Florida, Gainesville, set forth new methods for conducting research and academic writing in an age of electronic hypermedia in his book Heuretics: The Logic of Invention.

His method, or anti-method, is an artistic experiment. Ulmer states that all the art (and architecture) that has been created is only a small portion of what could have been.[1] Thus, Ulmer’s method demands the researcher stretch their imagination. If the researcher can let go of structure, then the mental experience will lead to invention. Professors of architecture have embraced Ulmer’s method to help students develop research topics, primarily at the thesis level.[2] 

The method—known as CATTt—requires the researcher to create multi-level arguments. This is achieved through five progressions.

C         =          Contrast (opposition, inversion, differentiation)

A         =          Analogy (figuration, displacement)

T         =          Theory (repetition, literalization)

T         =          Target (application, purpose)

t           =          tale (secondary elaboration, representability)

Ulmer refers to CATTt as an anti-method, however the anti-method indirectly reflects some of the information literacy methods librarians are repeatedly challenged to communicate to architecture students.

Contrast is at the core of a good research argument. The intention is to investigate alternative viewpoints. Marc J. Neveu, in his lecture Theses for a Thesis, elaborates that contrast is a reaction to something and your position must constantly be in flux.[3] When the researcher plays devil’s advocate, their mentality shifts. At a fundamental level, librarians instruct students to evaluate various perspectives to draw attention to potential bias and accurately represent the research topic. Ulmer challenges the researcher to do the same, but with a more momentous reason, because when the mentality shift happens new ideas come to fruition. Consequently, it can be argued that this is what librarians have been encouraging through information literacy.

Analogy requires the researcher to borrow thoughts from other disciplines.[4] Ulmer states that analogy is where method becomes invention.[5] Libraries encourage this through multidisciplinary databases and curated collections. However, librarians can become stronger advocates of analogy by teaching by example. We sit at the center of an intertangled web of university departments that provides ideal opportunities to collaborate across disciplines. Ulmer suggests researchers look outside their disciplines to nurture progressive thinking. For example, architecture librarians could do this by borrowing the idea of design thinking from our architecture colleagues to solve problems and generate new initiates.[6]

Theory is the obligation to fundamental research that librarians crave. Ulmer’s formula recognizes that it takes theory to make theory and that an academic researcher is part of a scholarly conversation. To join the world of academic research one must reference back to clearly established notions.[7] Accordingly, this is one of the six newly adopted frames in the Association of College & Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.[8]

Target is the audience for the research. This is an information literacy concept librarians communicate frequently to help students identify the purpose of the potential resource and the appropriate output format.

Finally, is tale or the cat’s tail/tale.[9] This is the representation of the research, and according to Neveu the aspect architecture students struggle with most.[10] At this point, the research project leaves the library and relocates to the studio where students make an effort to translate their ideas into drawings.

Ultimately, Ulmer’s pedagogy lets go of the nonsensical structure that one should have a thesis first before beginning to research.[11] Instead, CATTt demands the student conduct research in order to develop a topic. Librarians preach concepts like reviewing a list of references and developing a search vocabulary for this exact reason (and then some). One obvious semi-flaw in Ulmer’s method is that he implies that the researcher is not necessarily looking for accurate information.[12] He argues it is more important for the researcher to learn to make interdisciplinary connections—something librarians teach through tools like concept mapping, in addition to finding accurate information.

Seemingly, librarians have unintentionally embraced Ulmer’s concepts through aspects of information literacy instruction. I would argue that this connection should be more intentional. The discipline of librarianship is so rooted in structure that opportunities to nurture creativity are often missed. Creativity does not just happen in the studio. Architecture librarians have the obligation to inspire students and faculty through information. Why not take it one step further and incorporate the CATTt method into information literacy instruction? Working with architecture faculty to gain insight into the mindset of their students, architecture librarians could employ the CATTt method to help students think about research in a whole new way. Architecture faculty would then be able to better link library instruction to student learning outcomes and the finished design project. After all, if we let go of structure, and look at a topic critically through a new lens, according to Ulmer it will lead to something influential.

 

[1] Gregory L. Ulmer, Heuretics: The Logic of Invention (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 3.

[2] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[3] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[4] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[5] Gregory L. Ulmer, Heuretics: The Logic of Invention (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 8.

[6] IDEO, “Design Thinking for Libraries,” Global Libraries. December 31, 2014, http://designthinkingforlibraries.com/.

[7] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[8] ACRL, “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,” January 11, 2016, http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework.

[9] Gregory L. Ulmer, Heuretics: The Logic of Invention (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 9.

[10] Marc J. Neveu, “Theses for a Thesis” (lecture, Hammons School of Architecture, Drury University, Springfield, MO, November 1, 2008).

[11] Jacob T. Riley, “The CATTt Method: In Defense of Heuretic Pedagogy,” http://jtriley-dragline.blogspot.com/p/introduction-to-catttheuretics.html.

[12] Jacob T. Riley, “The CATTt Method: In Defense of Heuretic Pedagogy,” http://jtriley-dragline.blogspot.com/p/introduction-to-catttheuretics.html.

Bruce Lindsey of the School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis Starts Term as ACSA President

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Washington, D.C.—July 1, 2016 —The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) is pleased to announce that Bruce Lindsey, E. Desmond Lee Professor for Community Collaboration and Dean of the College and Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis, has begun his term as ACSA President for the 2016-2017 academic year. He assumes the role a year after his election to the board as Vice President/President-Elect.
 
As an artist, architect, and educator, Lindsey has made significant contributions to beginning design, sustainable design, and community design education. He joined the faculty of the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon in 1988 where he taught across the curriculum of architecture and art for 14 years. He then served as co-director of the Rural Studio from 2002-06, and the Paul Rudolph Professor from 2005-06. There he helped develop the five degree programs and two outreach programs around an idea of collective practice that was characterized by social and environmental activism advanced through an emphasis on interdisciplinary work and joint degrees.
 
A practicing architect, Lindsey worked with Davis + Gannon Architects to design the Pittsburgh Glass Center, which earned a gold rating under LEED guidelines. The project also received a Design Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and was chosen as one of 2005’s top 10 green buildings by the AIA’s Committee on the Environment. His other honors include a 1993 Young Architects Award from Progressive Architecture, a 2002 AIA Design Merit Award for his extensive renovation, with EDGE Architecture, of the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, and the 2015 ACSA Distinguished Professor Award.
 
In his first year on the ACSA board, as President-Elect, Lindsey has been instrumental in facilitating the reimagining of ACSA’s Strategic Plan. For the first time in a decade, ACSA has rewritten its strategic plan to help the organization be better able to address pressing issues affecting schools, faculty, and students. Lindsey will chair his first board meeting as ACSA President later this month in Washington, DC.
 
About the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
ACSA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, membership association founded in 1912 to advance the quality of architectural education. The school membership in ACSA has grown from 10 charter members to over 250 schools in several membership categories. These include full membership for all accredited programs in the United States and government-sanctioned schools in Canada, candidate membership for schools seeking accreditation, and affiliate membership for schools for two-year and international programs. Through these schools, over 5,000 architecture faculty members are represented. In addition, over 500 supporting members composed of architecture firms, product associations and individuals add to the breadth of interest and support of ACSA goals.

Tulane University

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Virtual Metropolis, an interactive virtual reality project on which Associate Professor Graham Owen collaborated in the mid-1990s, has been selected by the Bibliotheque Nationale de France for its collection of best artists’ CDs of that era.  Led by Owen’s former Thesis student Robert Ouellette, the collaboration brought together Toronto-based designers and artists.  Virtual Metropolis anticipated Google Street View by 12 years, but went further by using architecture as a portal, a series of wormholes to worlds and artworks beyond.  At the BNF, the project will run on emulators of the original operating systems.  Prof. Owen has also published “Whatever Happened to Semi-Autonomy?” in Architecture Philosophy; and “City of Risk:  Organization and Individualization in the Urban Recovery of New Orleans” in the minnesota review, in its Special Focus on “Katrina, Ten Years Later”, from Duke University Press.

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Tulane University on StudyArchitecture.com

Auburn University

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Three Auburn alumni were among the 149 elevated to the American Institute of Architects prestigious 2016 College of Fellows: Larry S. Cash (Chapter: AIA Alaska, Firm: RIM Architects); Paula Burns McEvoy (Chapter: AIA Atlanta, Firm: Perkins+Will); and C. Al York (Chapter: AIA Austin, Firm: McKinney York Architects). “We are extremely proud of Paula, Larry, and Al,” says David Hinson, Head of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. “Elevation to the AIA College of Fellows is a fitting recognition of their positive impact on the profession and the benefits of their work to society. Their careers are a credit to Auburn, and our students and faculty are inspired by their example.”  For more, read here.

Josiah Brown, a fifth-year architecture student from Ashland City, Tennessee, is the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s first recipient of the Aydelott Travel Award. The Aydelott Travel Award was established by Alfred Lewis Aydelott, FAIA (1916–2008) and his wife, Hope Galloway Aydelott (1920-2010), to encourage architecture students to “become proficient in the art of architectural analysis.” The $2.4 million endowment established by this well-known Memphis architect and his wife creates a $20,000 travel award for architecture students at four universities: Auburn University, Mississippi State University, the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, and the University of Tennessee. Read more here

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture was well represented among the award winners at the “This is Research: Student Symposium 2016,” held on April 13 at the Student Center. Out of the more than 400 undergraduate and graduate students who competed from Auburn and AUM, APLA students, Abigail Katsoulis and Madeline Gonzales, fifth-year architecture students, took home two first place awards and one second place in the Research and Creative Scholarship in Design, Arts and Humanities category. Ryan Bowen, a dual Environmental Design/Master of Landscape Architecture student, won first place for his poster presentation in the undergraduate category, and Livia Lima, a first–year MLA student, won second place in the graduate Creative Scholarship category for her oral presentation. To read more about the research, read here.

The Design Museum Foundation has developed a major, nationally-traveling exhibition on the importance of play and how designers translate play objectives into innovative, extraordinary, outdoor play environments. The exhibit, called “Extraordinary Playscapes,” includes Rural Studio’s Lions Park Playscape as one of the selected contributors. Currently open in Boston, the exhibit will be in Portland, OR next.  Read more here.

StudioAPLA:  the Summer Issue, the newsletter for the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture’s, is available now.
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Auburn University of StudyArchitecture!

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

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Ankerson named dean of UNL College of Architecture 

Katherine Ankerson, professor and head of the Department of Interior Architecture and Product Design at Kansas State University, has accepted appointment as dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Architecture. The appointment, pending approval by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents, was announced May 23.

“Katherine Ankerson is a proven administrator, educator and scholar with a track record in elevating programs and encouraging excellence,” Chancellor Ronnie Green said. “She also has a strong vision that understands the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to prepare the next generation of building and landscape architects, interior designers, and community and regional planners. This combination positions her as a transformational leader for our college of architecture.”

Ankerson, who was a professor and associate dean in the UNL architecture college from 1996 to 2011 before her tenure at Kansas State, will assume the dean’s post July 1. “I am honored to be named the dean of the College of Architecture at UNL,” Ankerson said. “I look forward to returning to this great university and leading the College of Architecture into its next era. I am committed to the transformative power of planning and design in our lives and communities and join with our faculty, staff, students and alumni to continue building the college into national prominence.” The College of Architecture’s programs in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and community and regional planning have a tradition of excellence in education, research and service. Its fall 2015 enrollment was 493 students.

“This is an exciting time at the college. Faculty and students are involved daily with work that inspires, with a focus on how architecture and design must confront real challenges in today’s world,” said Marjorie Kostelnik, interim senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, who led the search committee for the position. “We are confident that the college will break important new ground under Katherine’s leadership.”

Ankerson is a tenured full professor and has concluded her fifth year as head of Kansas State’s interior architecture and product design department. A strong proponent of design education, Ankerson said she believes in the potency of interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary engagement, the value of design and making, and embracing new technologies in addition to strengthening traditional design tools.

Ankerson’s philosophy is that design education must prepare global design citizens who take leadership to foster synergy, embrace successful collaboration and recognize interconnectedness, with an awareness of the responsibility of individual and collective actions in personal, social and environmental arenas.

She is an award-winning author, and as lead of the 20th Anniversary Nuckolls Lighting Grant, she worked with nine other educators in architecture, engineering and interior design representing four major universities to initiate and produce the award-winning web-based resource Lighting Across the [Design] Curriculum. Ankerson just completed a three-year term of elected presidential leadership with the North American organization Interior Design Educators Council. She is a CIDA site visitor and the education member of the Nuckolls Lighting Fund board of directors. 

Ankerson also held academic positions at Radford University and Washington State University after spending many years as a practicing architect and designer. She received her bachelor of science in architecture and bachelor of architecture from Washington State. She also earned a master’s degree in architecture from Washington State. 

By Steve Smith

 

Music in the Library

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Barbara Opar and Lucy Campbell, column editors


Column by Maya Gervits, Director of the Barbara & Leonard Littman Library, College of Architecture & Design, New Jersey Institute of Technology

According to a recent Andrew Mellon Foundation report, many academic institutions are now investigating partnerships between the arts and other academic disciplines to foster connections between them [1]. During these discussions, music has received special attention. It has been proven that musical compositions can inspire higher brain functioning and unlock creativity [2]. Albert Einstein, who credited some of his discoveries to musical perception, believed that music is the driving force behind intuition. Links between music and spatial-temporal skills, those important in solving problems, have been discovered by neuroscientists. Mozart and Vivaldi effects [3] are discussed in scientific journals. There are many associations to be found between music and architecture, music and visual arts, and design. They have been discussed over the centuries and were part of the reasoning behind the Littman Library’s attempt to engage students in the College of Architecture and Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in further exploration of these connections by hosting musical events.

The relationship between architecture and music is well documented. Leon Battista Alberti believed that the same characteristics that please the eye also please the ear. Palladio echoed this by noticing that, “the proportions of the voices are harmonies for the ears; those of the measurements are harmonies for the eyes. Such harmonies usually please very much without anyone knowing why, excepting the student of the causality of things”. [4]  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called architecture the “frozen music,” while 19th century art critic Walter Pater came to the conclusion that “all art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.”  We discuss rhythm, proportion, and ornamentation in both music and visual arts, and search for harmony between them.

Typically associated with German Romantics, the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk described as a complete, unified, or as it often referred to, a “total work of art”, was formulated in 1849 in Richard Wagner’s “Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft“ ( “The Artwork of the Future” ). Although, Hans Sedlmayr insisted that it existed long before that time [5]. Initially related to the synthesis of  arts in opera, it also has been manifested in Charles Baudelaire and
Stéphane Mallarmé’s poetry, Josef Hoffmann’s and Joseph Maria Olbrich’s architecture, James McNeil Whistler’s paintings, Sergei Diagilev’s ballet, and Alexander Skriabin’s musical compositions. The 20th century provided more tools to rethink the boundaries between the visual and musical. Creation of the “total work of art” was the ultimate goal of the Bauhaus program and the cornerstone of their educational system. Oscar Schlemmer’s “Triadisches Ballett” and Wassily Kandinsky’s experimental performances, rooted in his synesthesia (ability to see sounds), are just two of several Bauhaus projects created as an interplay of music, dance, and painting. “Poème électronique” and “Philips Pavilion” at Expo 58 – collaborative works by Edgard Varèse, Le Corbusier, and Iannis Xenakis, which combined electronic music, projections, and architecture, also came into existence with the purpose of creating a “total work of art.”

Understanding the idea of the “total work of art” can be an important lesson for students and, recently, more attention has been drawn to it. Gesamtkunstwerk has once again become a subject of numerous discussions, proving that this idea is still relevant. The exhibition, “Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk” in Kunsthaus Zurich (1983) and in Vienna (1984), a recreation and performance of Skriabin’s “Prometheus” at Yale University (2010), and the latest collection of essays, “The Death and Life of the Total Work of Art,” presented at the Bauhaus Colloquium in 2013, highlight the historic meaning of the term, and apply it to more recent events and works. Technological advancements provide the tools that allow for the creation of immersive artistic experiences, which remove “the borderline between object and observer, stage and audience, art work and spectator,” [6] and create projects that can be considered a “total work of art” of the 21st century. Although some of its political implications have been criticized, the idea of aesthetic unity of all the arts and their “wholeness” deserves attention, even if only for the purpose of providing students with more well-rounded educations that help to contextualize what they learn at school. Building on these ideas, in the spring of 2015, the Littman Library at the College of Architecture and Design at NJIT began “Music in the Library,” a series of concerts performed by the Montclair Trio [7] – musicians affiliated with the John J. Cali School of Music at the Montclair State University.

Although open to the whole university community, the concerts are mostly focused on the needs of the College of Architecture and Design population. The concert series directly supports several courses, including “Music for Designers,” which is focused on the theory and history of music, its relation to culture, and its use in cinema, digital and interactive media. Each concert is accompanied by a short lecture and PowerPoint presentation related to the theme of a concert, providing context as well as background information. Students design posters advertising the series. A book exhibition further enhances each event. The collaboration with musicians–a group of talented and dedicated educators–helps to develop programs that are both popular and educational. These events take place in an intimate “chamber-like” environment of the college Library which is located in the physical center of the building. Folding chairs that can be easily assembled form an auditorium. The Library remains open and fully functional during these events, which usually take place at night. Light refreshments help to create a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere. Free of charge, funded and supported by the college administration and alumni, these concerts have become popular and well attended. They help to alleviate stress, expand students’ horizons, improve their exposure to music, link performed musical compositions to the subjects of study in classes and studio, provide a historical context, and establish the Library as a place which can provide cultural and educational opportunities, often not possible within a curricular setting.

 

 

[1] https://mellon.org/about/annual-reports/2014-presidents-report/#higher-education

[2] E. Glenn Schellenberg Music and Cognitive Abilities in Current Directions in Psychological Science, v.14,n.6,2005.p317-320; R. Root-Bernstein Music, Creativity and Scientific Thinking Leonardo, v.34,n.1,2001,pp63-68

[3] K.Nantais and G.Schellenberg The Mozart Effect: an artifact of Preference. Psychological Science, July 1999.v.10,n4,pp370-373; L.Riby The joys of spring: Changes in Mental Alertness and brain functions Experimental psychology, vol. 60, 2013,p.71-79.

[4] M. Trachtenberg  ”Architecture and Music Reunited: a New Reading of Dufay’s Nuper  Rosarum Flores and the Cathedral of Florence” in Renaissance Quarterly, is.54,2001,p, 740.

[5] Hans Sedlmayr Der Verlust der Mitte: Die bildende Kunst des 19 und 20 Jahrhunderts als Symptoms und Symbol der Zeit. Frankfurt am Mein, 1985.

[6] .Hans Ulrich Reck  Immersive environment: the Gesamtkunstwerk of the 21st century? At: http://www.khm.de/kmw/reck/essays-ecrits-writings-saggi-ensayos/english/immersive-environments-the-gesamtkunstwerk-of-the-21-century/

[7] Montclair trio – Robert Radliff, Aurora Mendez and Paul Vanderwall

Auburn University

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Marlon Blackwell Architects in Fayetteville, Arkansas has received a 2016 National Design Award for Architecture from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The design firm was recognized “for exceptional and exemplary work in” architecture design for its body of work. Marlon Blackwell, a 1980 Auburn architecture graduate, is principal and founder of Marlon Blackwell Architects. For more, click here.
 
At the AIA National Convention in Philadelphia in May, the AIA presented a short documentary film on Rural Studio, Auburn University’s community-oriented, design-build program dedicated to improving the western Alabama region with good design. The Rural Studio film launches the 2016 Film Challenge, inviting filmmakers and architects to team up and tell stories of how architecture is solving a problem facing us today in communities, big or small, across the country. Visit here to learn more about the AIA’s Film Challenge.

The Rural Studio contributed to two international art and architecture exhibitions this spring: the XXI Triennale di Milano open from April to September of this year in Milan, Italy, and the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (La Biennale Architettura 2016) opened May 27th Images will be featured in the Summer Issue of StudioAPLA.

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