• Critical History Project
  • GRANTEE
    Storefront for Art and Architecture
    GRANT YEAR
    2012

The Critical History Project is a conference, an exhibition, videos, and a book that work together to understand the role of Storefront for Art and Architecture in the construction of architectural discourse within the last thirty years. Presented on the occasion of the organization's thirtieth anniversary, the project reevaluates the past, scope, impact, and residue of the most relevant projects undertaken by the institution and position them in contemporary culture to assess the present and future role of alternative positions within the field of architecture. The project is both retrospective and projective through a critical examination of and by artists, architects, academics, and scholars.

The Critical History Project is a collaborative project conceived, produced and presented with the support of Storefront's current and past staff, board, and artists. Key figures include:

Storefront's Director, Eva Franch i Gilabert, is a registered architect, researcher, curator, teacher, and the founder of OOAA (Office of Architectural Affairs). Franch studied at TU Delft, at ETS Arquitectura Barcelona, and at Princeton University. Franch received the La Caixa full fellowship in residence for postgraduate studies, the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize and the Howard Crosby Butler Fellowship from Princeton University, the FAD prize for emerging architects, a Pasajes-iGuzzini prize, a Dragados Foundation prize and she has been a fellow at Schloss Solitude. Franch's work has been exhibited at the Center for Architecture in NY, Korean Institute of Architects in Daegu, FAD Barcelona, NAI Rotterdam, Shenzen Biennale of Architecture, SOA Princeton, COAR Rioja and ETSA Barcelona. Franch has taught at the University of Buffalo and at Rice University. Franch has been a juror, visiting critic and lecturer in the US, South America, Australia, Middle East, Asia and Europe.

Programming Committee:

Carlos Brillembourg, AIA, is the principal of Carlos Brillembourg Architects, an award winning firm based in New York since 1984. He established his own practice in Caracas in 1980 and maintained two offices until 1998. Brillembourg was also a founding member of the Instituto de Arquitectura Urbana 1975-1985, which under Brillembourg's directorship produced urban design solutions for Caracas and other cities. Brillembourg earned his Masters in Architecture at Columbia University in 1975. He went on to teach architecture at the Simón Bolívar University in Caracas and at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York. He has organized two conferences with the New School and in 2002 with Terry Riley of the Museum of Modern Art organized a conference on Latin American Architecture 1929-1960 and then served as editor of, Latin American Architecture, 1929-1960 : Contemporary Reflexions published by Monacelli Press in 2004. He has also been the architecture editor for Bomb magazine since 1990.

Beatriz Colomina is professor of architecture and founding director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University. She is the author of Domesticity at War (ACTAR and MIT Press, 2007), Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (MIT Press, 1994) and Sexuality and Space (Princeton Architectural Press, 1992).

Terence Gower is a Canadian artist based in New York City. He has exhibited his work and curated exhibitions at galleries and museums in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Argentina and Cuba. Terence has published seven editions and multiples (most recently, Kitchen I & II) and has created public projects for Cologne, Mexico City, and New York City.

Lauren Kogod is partner at Kogod and Smiley Architects. She earned a BFA and BArch at the Rhode Island School of Design, an MS in Architecture and Building Design at Columbia University, and is a PhD candidate in architectural history and theory at Harvard University. Kogod most recently was lecturer in architectural history and theory at Yale University. Her articles have appeared in Assemblage, Harvard Design Magazine, Architecture and Urbanism, Enric Miralles (AD Monograph),and Adrian Luchini (CWA).

Charles Renfro, AIA, joined Diller Scofidio + Renfro, an interdisciplinary studio in New York, in 1997 and became partner in 2004. A native of Texas, Renfro is a graduate of Rice University and has a Masters of Architecture degree from Columbia University. Renfro has been a visiting professor at both Rice and Columbia Universities.

Robert Melvin Rubin is an independent curator and cultural historian. His most recent exhibition, Richard Prince: American Prayer, ran at the Bibliotheque nationale de France in 2011 and will travel to the Morgan Library and Museum in 2014. He has written on Prince, Jean Prouvé, Pierre Chareau, and, most recently, Allen Ginsberg and Richard Avedon. He is currently working on a book about Richard Avedon and France. In addition to having restored the Tropical House of Jean Prouvé and donated it to the Centre Pompidou, Rubin and his wife acquired, intermittently live in, and take care of Chareau's Maison de verre in Paris.

Past Directors:

Joseph Grima is a Milan-based architect and researcher and is currently the editor-in-chief of Domus magazine. He was the director of Storefront for Art and Architecture from 2006-2009, where he produced a publication for the organization's 25th Anniversary that archived all of the organization's historic newsprints and conceived and produced Postopolis, an event series that brought together some of the most influential thinkers in design and architecture.

Sarah Herda is director of the Graham Foundation. Herda was the executive director/curator of the Storefront for Art and Architecture from 1998-2006. While in that position she mounted over forty diverse exhibitions, working closely with architects, artists, and designers on material to be presented to the general public as well as more specialized audiences. She developed Storefront's Archive project, which documents all of Storefront's projects presented since its founding.

Kyong Park is an architect, artist, urban theorist and activist, whose research and artistic practice focuses on the city. He is founding director of Centrala Foundation for Future Cities in Rotterdam; cocurator of Europe Lost and Found, a project on future geography of Europe; a founding member of Lost Highway, a mass expedition through nine cities in the Western Balkans; editor of Urban Ecology: Detroit and Beyond; cocurator for Shrinking Cities in Berlin; the founding director of International Center for Urban Ecology in Detroit; curator of Kwangju Biennale in South Korea; a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University; and the founder of Storefront for Art and Architecture where he was also director from 1982-1998.

Film Curator/Director:

Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker based in New York and London. A former independent publisher and vice president of Salon.com; he is the cofounder, along with Sean Anderson of Plexifilm. Hustwit is best known for his Design Trilogy, which deals with aspects of graphic design, typography, industrial design, architecture and urban planning and includes documentaries Helvetica (2007), Objectified (2009) and Urbanized (2011).

Founded in 1982, Storefront for Art and Architecture is a nonprofit organization committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design. Its program of exhibitions, artist talks, film screenings, conferences and publications is intended to generate dialogue and collaboration across geographic, ideological and disciplinary boundaries. As a public forum for emerging voices, Storefront explores vital issues in art and architecture with the intent of increasing awareness of and interest in contemporary design.