Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 29, 2003|Volume 32, Number 1|Two-Week Issue

Amorphous shapes such as these are common among the computer-generated, "paperless" designs on view in "Intricacy" at the School of Architecture.

Computer-generated designs
featured in architecture gallery

Work that explores the frontiers of computer-generated design will be featured in the School of Architecture's first exhibition of the 2003-2004 academic year.

The exhibition, titled "Intricacy," was curated by the architect and theorist Greg Lynn, the William B. and Charlotte Shepard Davenport Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale. It features works by more than a dozen internationally recognized artists and architects, including Chris Cunningham, Adam Fuss, James Rosenquist, Peter Eisenman, Karl Chu, Farshid Moussazi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo. It will be on view Sept. 2-Nov. 7 in the gallery of the Art and Architecture Building, 10 York St.

Lynn, a pioneer in "paperless" architectural design, uses the word "Intricacy" to describe the novel configurations of space and the new visual language created through innovations of computer software and the digital media. Rather than create three-dimensional computer models from two-dimensional drafts, as architects traditionally do, Lynn bases his designs on the computer model itself, which he has transformed into amorphous shapes, much as one stretches and molds "Silly Putty."

The works on view in the exhibit express the new forms "paperless" designs can spawn. Where the cue and sphere have been the basic elements of traditional architecture, the three-dimensional amoeboid "blob" dominates the landscape of digital design. The objects, artifacts, drawings, models and paintings in the exhibit exemplify the complex configurations these non-Euclidean shapes can assume -- from cloud-like ceiling lamps with pendulous udder centers to bright red sculpted figures, whose intricately swirling folds give new meaning to the term "plastic arts."

Lynn created "Intricacy" for the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at the University of Pennsylvania with support from, among others, The Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by the University of the Arts, as well as from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Stephen A. and Diana L. Goldberg Foundation and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

'Intricacy: A Symposium'

Artists, architects and designers will discuss the emerging visual and spatial language fostered by the digital and genetic engineering revolutions in a symposium on "Intricacy" on Wednesday, Sept. 3, 6-7:30 p.m. in the auditorium of the Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. A reception will be held prior to the symposium at 5 p.m. in the School of Architecture gallery. The public is invited.

Gallery hours are Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. For further information call (203) 432-2288 or visit the School of Architecture website at www.architecture.yale.edu.

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