The Architect's Newspaper January/February 2023
The Embrace, by Hank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group, opens in Boston page 9
www.archpaper.com
Anthony Fontenot remembers Mike Davis's “radical politics of hope” page 14
@archpaper
AN explores recent inventive works by New York–based Davies Toews page 16
$3.95
Kevin Daly Architects and PRODUCTORA shape shaded scallops in Houston page 18
6 13 44 46 50
Open Pictorial Marketplace Highlights Comment
LEVER wins bid for PMA
RURBANITY
An expanded Portland Museum of Art is in the works. Read on page 7.
What do a pleasantly overgrown parking lot in Detroit, a new crop of bio-materials, and an NFT project about banks sited in the desert have in common? Read on page 21.
COURTESY PORTL AND MUSEUM OF ART, MAINE; LEVER ARCHITECTURE; DOVETAIL DESIGN STR ATEGISTS
ANDREW SCHWARTZ
In Mexico City, Rooms for Thought Bubbles Transmuting LIGA turns ten Black Loss Steven Holl Architects completes a “social condenser” on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Read on page 15.
In late September 2022, a large hall in a former textile factory in Mexico City’s Colonia Doctores was festively decked out. For the uninitiated, the party appeared to be a bunch of people over 30 mingling, with drinks and a good sound system. But to anyone with some knowledge of the architecture world, it was an impressive assembly. Here in the same room were Mauricio Rocha and Alberto Kalach, perhaps Mexico’s most revered living architects, conversing jovially with peers and friends. Tatiana Bilbao and Martino Stierli—the former was an honoree of the evening— were also present, as were rising and established architects from Munich, London, and Santiago. The lighting (courtesy of Lutron, a sponsor) was considered, the delicious menu created by a star chef, and the fluid, light ambience interrupted only by a few solemn speeches. The starry affair was a testament to the prestige enjoyed by continued on page 12
PAUL WARCHOL
In “When the Battle Is Over,” the introductory essay in the catalogue accompanying Young Lords and Their Traces, Theaster Gates explains that the genesis for the exhibition was the loss of two dear friends: curator, writer, and critic Okwui Enwezor and feminist theorist bell hooks. Gates states that with this exhibition, the New Museum temporarily becomes a site of mourning and communing but also mischief and conjuring. The show recognizes the recent loss of a roster of Black Young Lords, including polymath designer Virgil Abloh, theorist Greg Tate, painter Sam Gilliam, and ceramicist Marva Lee Pitchford-Jolly, in addition to Gates’s father, Theaster Gates Sr. It also marks the absence of other influences on Gates’s practice, such as film theorist Robert Bird, painter Agnes Martin, and artist Joseph Beuys. The power of Young Lords is Gates’s transmutation of both loss and the museum itself. continued on page 49
Residential Construction Where we live, lately. Read on page 27. LEONID CREDIT FURMANSK Y TK TK
The Architect’s Newspaper 25 Park Place, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10007
PRSRT STD US POSTAGE PAID PERMIT No. 336 MIDLAND, MI