Today is a conversation with Sylvia Lavin and we’re discussing her recent book ‘Architecture Itself and Other Postmodernization Effects’.
Sylvia Lavin is Professor of History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University. Prior to her appointment at Princeton, Lavin was a Professor in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at UCLA, where she was Chairperson from 1996 to 2006 and the Director of the Critical Studies M.A. and Ph.D. program from 2007 to 2017.
She is the author of Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture. Her most recent books include, Kissing Architecture, published by Princeton University Press in 2011 and Flash in the Pan, an AA publication from 2015.
Professor Lavin is also a curator: including, Everything Loose Will Land: Art and Architecture in Los Angeles in the 1970s, was a principal component of the Pacific Standard Time series supported by the Getty Foundation and traveled from Los Angeles to New Haven and to Chicago. Her installation, Super Models, was shown at the 2018 Chicago Architecture Biennial and most recently Architecture Itself and Other Postmodernists Myths, was an exhibition at the Canadian Center for Architecture.
Natasha Sandmeier’s work and research straddles the worlds of architecture and visualization – with a long-standing interest the role of media within the creation and production of speculative architectures and environments. She is an educator and leads the postgraduate Entertainment Studio at UCLA Architecture & Urban Design. She is an architect and founding partner of Studio OUR, and the author and editor of Little Worlds (London, 2014); a monograph of projects and essays re-examining the role of the architect within contemporary architectural culture.
Links:
Deep Fake of Nancy Pelosi <LINK>
Unreal Engine 5 launch <LINK>
William Gibson Article <LINK>
Just yesterday two astronauts launched into outer space from the United States for the first time in 9 years. Interesting side note, this launch was the first time in 40 years that NASA astronauts launched in a new space craft...The Space Shuttle had been around for over thirty years. Today is a conversation with Jeffrey Nesbit and we’re discussing the book ‘Extraterrestrial’ co edited by himself and Guy Trangos. In looking to the extraterrestrial, the book is a collection of essays from a range of disciplines about tied to the term- extraterrestrial. And as you’ll here in the discussion today, the book includes an array of perspectives for how the term ‘extraterrestrial’ might be beneficial for exploring our own existence here on earth.
As Jeffrey mentions during our discussion, extraterrestrial is more than just about that which originates ‘beyond’ our planet. This ‘extra’ along with the word ‘terrestrial’ also includes the heightening, exaggerating and intensifying of what we as humans or a planet might assume to be. Extraterrestrial might not be a found condition existing beyond us but something we strive to become. Becoming extraterrestrial! Now, I may have taken a bit of artistic or editorial license with that last sentence, but I like where it’s going. Maybe we can all strive to be a little more extraterrestrial these days!
Jeffrey S Nesbit is an architect, urbanist, and recently received his Doctor of Design degree (DDes) from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He is a research fellow in the Office for Urbanization at Harvard and founding director of the research group Haecceitas Studio. His research focuses on processes of urbanization, infrastructure, and the evolution of "technical lands." Currently, Nesbit’s research examines the 20th-century American spaceport complex at the intersection of architecture, infrastructure, and aerospace history. He has written several journal articles and book chapters on infrastructure, urbanization, and the history of technology, and is co-editor of Chasing the City: Models for Extra-Urban Investigations (Routledge, 2018), Rio de Janeiro: Urban Expansion and Environment (Routledge, 2019), and New Geographies 11 Extraterrestrial (Actar, 2019). Nesbit has taught architecture and urbanism, along with leading many design studios and theory seminars at Harvard University, Northeastern University, University of North Carolina Charlotte, and Texas Tech University. He also holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Texas Tech University
A big thanks you to the Graham Foundation in Chicago for supporting this program!
Until next time...Take care.