Anne Griswold Tyng, “Form finds Symmetry in Geometry,” in Zodiac 19, 1969

In conjunction with the Graham’s current exhibition, Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry, Alicia Imperiale will discuss Tyng’s seminal essay Geometric Extensions of Consciousness, published in the Italian architectural journal Zodiac 19 in 1969.  In the article, Tyng proposes geometries that would open up architectural form by following natural laws of growth in plants and organisms. She writes, "I have found a geometric progression from simplicity to complexity of symmetric forms linked by asymmetric process,"¹ and goes on to demonstrate the power of geometry as the invisible driving force in natural forms intrinsic to her research, astonishing drawings, and architectural projects.

Zodiac was published in Milan from 1959-1973. In a number of issues, editor Maria Bottero assembled an extraordinary group of international architects around the themes of geometric studies and the influence of natural systems on architectural design. Imperiale will discuss Tyng’s work in relation to her contemporaries, such as Buckminster Fuller, Zvi Hecker and Alfred Neumann, Keith Critchlow, Robert LeRicolais, Moshe Safdie, Rinaldo Semino, Michael Burt, Renzo Piano, and others, also published in Zodiac.

¹ Anne Griswold Tyng, “Form finds Symmetry in Geometry,” in Zodiac 19, 1969, page 139.

Alicia Imperiale, Architect, is Assistant Professor of Architectural History/Theory and Design at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Her design and written work focuses on the impact of digital technologies on art, architecture, representation, and fabrication. She is a PhD candidate at Princeton University. Her dissertation is based on the theoretical projects of Italian architect Rinaldo Semino which contextualizes Semino’s work in a larger milieu of megastructural design, cybernetic studies, and radical political events in Italy from 1958-1973. Her essay Organic Italy: The Troubling Case of Rinaldo Semino was recently published in Perspecta 43: Taboo (Yale University Journal of Architecture, MIT Press, 2010). In relation to her work on the politics of the 1960s Imperiale is a co-curator of the exhibit Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X. She is a contributor to the recent book, of the same name published by Actar/Birkhäuser, 2010. Imperiale has taught design and visual theory at Southern California Institute of Architecture, Pratt Institute, Columbia University, Cornell University, and Parsons School of Design. She holds a B.Arch from Pratt Institute, an MFA in Combined Media from Hunter College and an MA from Princeton University. She was a Van Alen/Dinkeloo Visiting Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.

Imperiale’s article, Dynamic Symmetries in the work of Anne Tyng, will be included in an exhibition catalog co-published by the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia (ICA) and the Graham Foundation.  Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry will feature drawings and documentation of projects by Tyng; photographs of the installations at both the ICA and the Graham Foundation; additional essays by Jenny Sabin and Srdjan Jovanoviç Weiss, and an illustrated chronology of Anne Tyng’s life by Ingrid Schaffner and William Whitaker. The catalog will be designed by Project Projects and distributed by DAP.