Architect as Goth: Odile Decq to lecture at SAIC/AIADO

Yes, I know it's the 19th, but it's never too late to be adding stuff to the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

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Specifically, on November 27th, the School of the Art Institute, Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects will be hosting a lecture by Odile Decq of Odile Decq Beno�t Cornette, Architectes-Urbanistes, the French Goth architect who could be said to be the anti-Richard Meier.

what kind of clothes do you avoid wearing?
anything which is not black.

what I am very interested in when I design and conceive something, is thinking about the close relationship between body and space.

when you think about quentin tarantino, robert altman�the way the camera is in a space or the way the different sequences are organized, films don't explain how you pass from one place to another. you are just 'there' and then you are somewhere else. I like these kinds of transitions�

The above quotes come from interview with the architect in designboom, which has also published some views of her firm's Paris studio.


Odeq's design philosophy can seen in her new addition for MACRO , Museo D'arte Contemporanea Roma, inserted into what was originally a Peroni beer factory, and anchored by a blood-red auditorium structure floating within a larger lobby space.(Great photographs of the construction and finished product at SkyscraperCity here.)

This foyer has been painted in black.  I hesitated in the beginning.  I have to confess I hesitated to do it because I was thinking, do I have to apply to everyone the punishment that I give to me, to be black, but in a way, yes, because of this question of being neutral, with the white.  I was thinking that if I painted  in black, this is another neutral, another neutral color, but it's a stronger one. And this stronger one will have resistance, a stronger resistance for the art, and the art has to be stronger, to be in front. And now they hang art on these walls, and it works very well.

You can see the entire Columbia University lecture from which Decq's quote was taken here.   The Chicago lecture on November 27th will be 6:00 p.m. in SAIC's Columbus Auditorium, 280 South Columbus.

Elsewhere, we've also added an AIA/Chicago/Architect Magazine Arts Club event on the 29th with Chris Sullivan, Building Enclosure Trends: Design, Energy and Codes.

This is also the last week for the exhibition The Enduring Designs of Josef Frank at the Swedish American Museum in Andersonville.  The show closes on Sunday.

Things are sparse this holiday week, but today, Monday the 19th, there's An Te Liu at UIC, and a Chicago Makes Modern book launch with Ben Nicholson and Inigo Manglano-Ovalle at the Graham. Things pick up again next week, so check out the nearly dozen great items still to come on November 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Prentice today - Behar, McCarter, Castro Iraola, An Te Liu, Njale, Russians, Richardson and much more - the November calendar

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November starts out today, Thursday the 1st, with the issue of landmark designation for Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital finally comes to a head at the Commissions on Chicago Landmarks monthly meeting starting at 12:45 p.m. in room 201-A (Council Chambers) at City Hall.  The event has been carefully scripted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel to quickly end in an approval of Prentice's destruction.  We'll see how much the players adhere to lines Emanuel has written for them.

It will to be hard to top today, but there are almost fifty items already on the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.  Its includes the announcement of the winners and display of the work of the Future Prentice Competition, at the Chicago Architecture Foundation on the 15th.

This Saturday the 3rd, Yves B�har will be discussing Design for Tomorrow at the Chicago Humanities Festival, and next Wednesday Ann Clark discusses Design in Haiti at CAF.

You want architects? We've got Meejin Yoon at IIT Wednesday the 7th, where Jean-Louis Cohen lectures on the 14th, Eva Castro Iraola of Plasma Studio at the Art Institute Monday, the 12th, Chan-li Lin discussing Three Hospitals by Rafael Vinoly Architects at CAF lunchtime on Wednesday the 14th, An Te Liu, Monday the 19th at UIC, where Ciro Njale lectures on Friday, the 16th.

Books? Robert McCarter talks about his new book Understanding Architecture at Unity Temple on Thursday, the 8th, the same day Julia Bachrach discusses her City in a Garden at The Cliff Dwellers, and on Monday the 19th, Ben Nicholson and Inigo Manglano-Ovalle discuss their new book Chicago Makes Modern, at the Graham, where Yuval Yasky talks about Kibbutz on Tuesday the 27th

H.H. Richardson's Glessner House is celebrated with a lecture by Ken Breisch on Friday the 9th, and a day-long symposium Saturday the 10th,  the same day the Society of Architectural Historians have their annual gala, while Lisa Lise Dub�-Scherr of the Richard H. Driehaus Museum discusses the history of its home, the Nickerson Mansion, for Landmarks Illinois at the Cultural Center on the 15th, the same day Jean-Louis Cohen discusses The Russian Avant-Garde between East and West at the Graham and curator Karen Kice offers a gallery talk on the Art Institute's exhibition Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects, where Iker Gil of MAS Studio leads an "Archi-Salon" the following Saturday, the 17th

The Structural Engineers Association of Illinois discusses The Christchurch Earthquake Tuesday the 13th, the same day Christopher Enck gives an overview of 20th Century Furniture Design at the Herman Miller Showroom for AIA/Chicago.  SEAIO also offers an all-day symposium on Chicago Loads on the 7th, and a three-day conference on Fundamental and Structural Analysis for curved and Skewed Steel Bridges beginning on 14th.

And this is just scratching.  Check out the entire November 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.