Foster + Partners Newly Designed Sperone Westwater Gallery in NYC

Nearly 35 years after its conception, Sperone Westwater continues to exhibit the work of prominent artists of diverse nationality and age, who work in various media. The gallery, designed by Norman Foster of Foster + Partners, doubles the exhibition area and pioneers an innovative approach to vertical movement within a gallery setting. The concept for the Gallery is both a response to the dynamic urban character of New York’s Bowery and a desire to rethink the way in which the public engages with art in the setting of a gallery. The nine-storey building is part of a bold initiative to reinvigorate the neighborhood and the design will pioneer an innovative approach to vertical movement within a gallery building.

Click to read more ...

UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale

John Briscella, “UGNB (Urban Gridded Notebook)” (detail), 2009SUPERFRONT LA is proud to present UNPLANNED: Research and Experiments at the Urban Scale, the second SUPERFRONT LA exhibit of 2010. Just as the discipline of architecture faces a re-imagination of itself in this era of slow-motion global capitalism, the human population finds itself crossing the threshold to a predominantly urban existence.  Many of the basic tenets underpinning urban planning – Cartesian geometry, programmatic taxonomy, contextualism – have been subject to skeptical investigation and rebellion in architecture throughout the past decade. Yet conventional urban planning continues, the discipline of urban planning operating much as it has since the 1960s (if not the 1860s).  Leveraging an interdisciplinary focus, UNPLANNED: RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTS AT THE URBAN SCALE boldly presents a collection of radical methods for envisioning and producing space at the urban scale.

A group exhibit with more than twenty participants, UNPLANNED spans architecture, urban design, industrial design, conceptual art, and cartography to present an array of experimental work at the urban scale. UNPLANNED opens March 25th with reception 5pm – 8pm.  On view through July 2nd, 2010 at Pacific Design Center (PDC) Suite B208, West Hollywood, CA 90069.