Conversations in Context

Thursday evening guest-hosted tour + reception at the Glass House
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CONVERSATIONS IN CONTEXT

Since the 1940s, the Glass House has served as a place of inspiration, education, and conversation
across creative disciplines. Its 49-acre landscape, 14 architectural structures, and world-class art collection continue to draw members of an international creative community to engage with its
rich legacy. Conversations in Context invites leaders from creative fields to reflect on the site’s past, present, and future, and to contribute their perspectives on the Glass House and its significance to contemporary debates. Conversations in Context take place Thursday evenings from 5:30-8:00pm.

View films and learn more about the 2011 and 2012 seasons of Conversations in Context.

Conversations in Context visitors will also receive a Glass House / NTHP membership and a 10% discount in the Glass House Store. $100 of this ticket purchase is tax-deductible and supports ongoing preservation and education efforts at the Glass House.

Conversations in Context is generously supported by Oldcastle BuildingEnvelope^®

Additional support is kindly provided by Nat and Lucy Day.
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2013 CONVERSATIONS IN CONTEXT HOSTS

May 2: Murray Moss, Founder, Moss + Francois de Menil, Founder, FdM: Arch

June 6: Elizabeth Diller, Founding Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Professor of Architecture, Princeton University

July 18: Peter Eisenman, Founder + Principal, Eisenman Architects; Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice, Yale School of Architecture + Cynthia Davidson, Founding Editor, Log: Observations on Architecture and the Contemporary City

September 12: Bjarke Ingels, Founder, BIG Bjarke Ingels Group; Honorary Professor, Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen

October 10: James Welling, Photographer; Area Head of Photography, UCLA

October 24: Peter Brant, Collector, Founder and President, The Brant Foundation, Inc.

November 7: Annabelle Selldorf, Founder, Selldorf Architects
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May 2: Murray Moss, Founder, Moss + Francois de Menil, Founder, FdM: Arch
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MURRAY MOSS of MOSS and Moss Bureau, has sought out, discovered (or re-discovered), collaborated with, supported, and often nurtured, a large number of international designers, studios, and manufacturers, not only providing a unique and highly influential platform for their voices to be heard, but introducing new thinking, new contexts, new technologies, and new materials to the public for the past 17 years. Moss’s store has often been compared to a museum: at his shop/gallery in SoHo, he was a pioneer in his field, curating and producing, annual, acclaimed exhibitions, partnering with diverse entities and thereby expanding greatly the subject and definition of design. Moss’ agenda is to expand the criteria with which we evaluate 'functional objects', arguing that the inclusion of narrative, or an 'art content', in a functional object creates a hybrid: for example, 'sculpture' as well as 'tool.’ Moss has continuously argued that the dictum 'form follows function' should be re-thought of as a point of view, not a biblical command. He believes good design is based on established, but arbitrary criteria, and that there are multiple sets of criteria due to multiple designer agendas; and hence multiple definitions of good. He has repeatedly invented more effective ways of illuminating the multitude of briefs designers can bring to a project, and succeeded in clearly articulating these briefs to the public through his iconic store displays and gallery exhibitions. Deliberately blurring the distinctions between industrial production and studio craft, between utilitarian objects and art, and more recently, between Modernist tenants and the resurgence of the Decorative Arts, the highly eclectic, ingeniously curated, museum-like presentations incorporate both humor and surprise as well as an intelligence and highly informed familiarity with the questions what ‘design’ is (and, most importantly, what it can be). Moss is a frequent guest speaker at art academies, universities, and museums. Mr. Moss has been acknowledged through numerous awards in his field, including the 2002 Chrysler Design Award and Russell Wright Award, House Beautiful's 2000 Giants of Design Award, and Metropolitan Home's 2004 Modernism Award. In 2007 he was inducted into Interior Design Magazine's Hall of Fame. In February of this year, Moss opened Moss Bureau, an advisory agency providing a large number of services to the sector. Photo courtesy of Moss.

FRANCOIS DE MENIL, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C; is Principal and founder of FdM:Arch, an internationally acclaimed architecture firm. De Menil grew up in one of the first International Style structures built in Texas, a mid-century residence designed by Philip Johnson in 1948, a one-story brick long and low-slung house set back on a large plot of land that is now part of the Menil Collection. De Menil began his career as a filmmaker, creating films on the sculptors Mark di Suvero, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle. It was an interest in three-dimensional forms that first drew him to architecture. In 1987, he received his Bachelor in Architecture from the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Prior to founding his own firm in 1991, de Menil worked in the offices of Richard Meier & Partners and Kohn Pedersen Fox. FdM:Arch has provided architectural and interior design services for a variety of institutional, residential, retail and corporate office projects. Under de Menil’s guidance, FdM:Arch is known for combining a understanding of light and space with an ability to find architectural solutions through inspiring narratives. The firm’s architecture examines issues of social, historical, and cultural context and transforms this research into a specific narrative related to the client, the site, and the program. From this synthesis emerges a signature concept that informs the tectonics. Across typologies from residential to institutional, the work explores issues relating to how we live, how we work, and how we experience the spirituality of life. The work exhibits innovative interpretations of programs capturing the project’s essence, reflecting its occupants, and harmonizing with its site. Photo by Oberto Gili.

June 6: Elizabeth Diller, Founding Principal, Diller Scofidio + Renfro; Professor of Architecture, Princeton University
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ELIZABETH DILLER is a founding principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a ninety person interdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. Ms. Diller attended the Cooper Union School of Art and received a Bachelor of Architecture from the Cooper Union School of Architecture. Ms. Diller is a Professor of Architecture at Princeton University. Among the various projects of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s international body of work: Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, including the redesign of Alice Tully Hall, the renovation and expansion of The Juilliard School, the Hypar Pavilion Lawn and Restaurant, and the expansion of the School of American Ballet; the High Line, an urban park situated on an obsolete elevated railway stretching 1.5 miles long through the Chelsea area of New York City. Currently in design: the Broad Art Museum in downtown Los Angeles, CA; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley; the Columbia University Graduate School of Business in New York City; the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. Installation and performance projects recently completed include: The Art of Scent 1889-2010, an exhibition of olfactory art at the Museum of Arts & Design; Open House in collaboration with Droog; How Wine Became Modern for SFMOMA. In 1999-2004, the MacArthur Foundation presented Ms. Diller and Mr. Scofidio with the ‘genius’ award for their commitment to integrating architecture with issues of contemporary culture. Both principals are fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other prestigious awards and honors received by Diller Scofidio + Renfro include: the National Design Award from the Smithsonian; the Brunner Prize from the American Academy of the Arts and Letters; an Obie for an off-Broadway theater production; the AIA President’s Award; the AIA Medal of Honor; and AIA Honor Awards for numerous projects. Most recently, Ms. Diller was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and selected as an Aspen Institute Harman-Eisner Artist in Residence. Photo by Iwan Baan.

July 18: Peter Eisenman, Founder + Principal, Eisenman Architects; Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice, Yale School of Architecture + Cynthia Davidson, Founding Editor, Log: Observations on Architecture and the Contemporary City
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PETER EISENMAN is design principal of Eisenman Architects in New York. His current projects include the City of Culture of Galicia in Spain; a master plan for Pozzuoli, Italy, and a residential condominium in Milan. His award-winning projects include the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts in Ohio. In 2010, he received the international Wolf Prize in Architecture, and in 2004 the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Architecture Biennale. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Among his many books are Written Into the Void: Selected Writings, 1990-2004 and Ten Canonical Buildings, 1950-2000, on the work of ten architects. He is also the Charles Gwathmey Professor in Practice at the Yale School of Architecture.

CYNTHIA DAVIDSON is an architecture editor and critic based in New York City. She is the founding editor of Log: Observations on Architecture and the Contemporary City, a tri-annual journal begun in 2003, and editor of the Writing Architecture Series books published by MIT Press. Both publication programs are projects of the Anyone Corporation, a nonprofit, architecture think tank she has directed since 1991. She was the founding editor of the architecture tabloid magazine ANY (1993–2000) and of the “Any” book series, which documented ten international architecture conferences that she organized in the 1990s on the condition of architecture at the end of the 20th century. Ms. Davidson has also written for a number of periodicals, including Architectural Record in New York and Arquitectura Viva in Madrid.

September 12: Bjarke Ingels, Founder, BIG Bjarke Ingels Group; Honorary Professor, Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen
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BJARKE INGELS started BIG Bjarke Ingels Group in 2005 after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 and working at OMA in Rotterdam. Through a series of award-winning design projects and buildings, Bjarke has developed a reputation for designing buildings that are as programmatically and technically innovative as they are cost and resource conscious. Bjarke has received numerous awards and honors, including the Danish Crown Prince’s Culture Prize in 2011, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and the ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. In 2011, the Wall Street Journal awarded Bjarke the Architectural Innovator of the Year Award. In 2012, the American Institute of Architects granted the 8 House its Honor Award, calling it “a complex and exemplary project of a new typology.” Alongside his architectural practice, Bjarke taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and Rice University and is an honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen. He is a frequent public speaker and has spoken in venues such as TED, WIRED, AMCHAM, 10 Downing Street, and the World Economic Forum. Photo by Jonas Bie.

October 10: James Welling, Photographer; Area Head of Photography, UCLA
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JAMES WELLING has been questioning the norms of representation since the 1970s. His work centers on an exploration of photography, shuffling the elemental components of the medium to produce a distinctly uncompromising body of work. Welling is also intensely interested in cultural and personal ideas of memory in his work. In opening up the medium of photography for experimentation, James Welling's practice has influenced an entire generation of artists and photographers. Welling was born in 1951 in Hartford, Connecticut. He received his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California. Since 2005, his work has been represented by David Zwirner. In 2012, James Welling: Overflow marked his fifth solo show at the gallery. Welling’s work has been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Horticultural Society of New York, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Art Gallery of York University, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Kunstmuseum Luzern. In 2000, the Wexner Center for the Arts, organized a major survey of his work, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 2009, Welling's work was featured in the critically acclaimed historical survey, The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and in 2008, he participated in the Whitney Biennial. In 1992, his work was included in documenta IX. Welling is Area Head of Photography at UCLA and in the Fall of 2012 was a Visiting Professor at Princeton University. His work is held in major museum collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Photo by Lisa Ohlweiler.

October 24: Peter Brant, Collector, Founder and President, The Brant Foundation, Inc.
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PETER BRANT is an avid collector and advocate for the arts, as well as the founder and president of The Brant Foundation, Inc. located in Greenwich, CT. Mr. Brant’s interest in art was first sparked as a young child by his father, Murray Brant, a collector of French rococo paintings. Mr. Brant started his own collection with the purchase of two Warhols and a Franz Kline as a college student. Since then, Mr. Brant has slowly amassed a large and expansive collection which is primarily focused on the work of contemporary American artists. Through the creation of The Brant Foundation, Inc. and The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Mr. Brant hopes to give back to the community by promoting education and appreciation of contemporary art and design -- perhaps inspiring the next would-be artist, teacher or casual art enthusiast. The Brant Foundation Art Study Center opened in May 2009 in a former stone fruit barn which was converted into gallery space by noted architect Richard Gluckman. The inaugural exhibition was titled, “Remembering Henry’s Show: Selected Works 1978 – 2008.” Since that time, exhibits have featured works by artists Urs Fischer, Josh Smith, David Altmejd, Karen Kilimnik, and Nate Lowman. Mr. Brant is a member of the board of trustees of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and is a member of the advisory council of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. In addition, Mr. Brant is a member of the chairman’s council of The Museum of Modern Art, and serves on the art advisory board at Hunter College, New York, NY, and is a former trustee of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Mr. Brant’s interest in the arts also extends to film: he was executive producer of several successful films examining the lives of important artists of the twentieth century: “BASQUIAT” in 1986, “POLLOCK” in 2000, and along with PBS, “ANDY WARHOL: A DOCUMENTARY” in 2006, winner of the 2006 Peabody Award and an Emmy Award. In 2013, Mr. Brant was awarded an American Art Award by the Whitney Museum of American Art for his commitment to the arts. Photo by Patrick Demarchelier.

November 7: Annabelle Selldorf, Founder, Selldorf Architects
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ANNABELLE SELLDORF is the Principal of Selldorf Architects, a New York-based architecture firm with an international reputation for work that is sensitive to context and program, thoughtful in execution, and timeless. Ms. Selldorf is recognized for her expertise in the specific demands of cultural projects with notable designs including the award-wining Neue Galerie New York; the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; and numerous gallery and exhibition spaces for David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, Michael Werner, and the Gladstone Gallery among others. In 2006, she completed the interior architecture for the Urban Glass House, a condominium building in Manhattan that was Philip Johnson’s final residential project. Born and raised in Germany, Ms. Selldorf first came to the United States to study architecture and received degrees from Pratt Institute and Syracuse University. Ms. Selldorf is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and President of the Board of the Architectural League of New York. She also serves on the Board of the Chinati Foundation. Photo by Dean Kaufman.