Does the design of physical theater spaces and venues affect the experiential aspects of performing arts? Are there other, perhaps surprising, ways of relating architecture and theater? This panel discusses perspectives from both sides of the curtain.
Terrace Gallery - Sun., Feb. 24, 2013, 1:30 PM
Free Event
Moderated by Pedro Gadanho, Curator of Contemporary Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, this panel includes lighting designer Jesper Kongshaug (Denmark); Craig Dykers, Senior Partner at Snøhetta (Norway); Marianne Weems, Artistic Director of the Builders' Association (USA); and Charles Renfro, partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro (USA).
Pedro Gadanho, USA (Moderator)
Pedro Gadanho is the Curator for Contemporary Architecture at the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He previously served as Co-Director of ExperimentaDesign, a design and architectural firm based in Lisbon, Portugal. He was the editor-in-chief of Beyond, Short Stories on the Post-Contemporary, a bookazine through Sun Architecture, as well as the author of Arquitectura em Público (2011). He has curated a number of shows, including Space Invaders (2002) for the British Council, a touring exhibition of work by 15 up-and-coming British architects. Gadanho has designed several buildings in Portugal, including Baltasar House in Porto and the Torres Vedras House in Lisbon.
Jesper Kongshaug, Denmark
Jesper Kongshaug is an international lighting designer working in theater, opera, ballet, television, art exhibitions, and architecture. His most recent designs include Akram Khan's Vertical Road (2010) in London and Paul Ruder's Dancer in the Dark (2010) in Denmark. He has also worked in the United States with the Boston Lyric Opera and the San Francisco Opera, in France with the Opera de Lyon, and in Austria with "Theater an der Wien" in Vienna. He has recently worked on architectural lighting projects in Kastrup Copenhagen Airport and "Højbro Plads," a complete redesign of an old square in Copenhagen. For Nordic Cool 2013, Jesper will be recreating the effect of the Northern Lights surrounding the Kennedy Center, every evening for the duration of the festival.
Marianne Weems, USA
Marianne Weems is Artistic Director of the Builders' Association; she has directed every production since the company's first, Ibsen's The Master Builders, in 1994. She currently serves as a board member for Art Matters, APAP, and Yaddo. She co-authored Art Matters: How the Culture Wars Changed America (2000) with Philip Yenawine and Brian Wallis. Weems is also the head of Graduate Directing at Carnegie Mellon University.
Charles Renfro, USA
Charles Renfro, AIA, is a Partner at Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a 90-person interdisciplinary design studio that integrates the performing arts, visual arts, and architecture. He serves as Partner-in-Charge of the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Stanford University's McMurtry Art & Art History Building, and the Dissona Factory and Housing Complex in Shenzhen, China. His writing has been published in Bomb and A+U Magazine, and in 2009 he authored the essay, "Undesigning the New Art School" for Steven Henry Madoff's book Art School:Propositions for the 21st Century. He has been on the faculty of Columbia University since 2000, was the Cullinan Visiting Professor at Rice University in 2006, and has taught at both Parsons the New School for Design and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's Design Directions Program.
Craig Dykers, USA
Craig Dykers, Senior Partner of the landscape and architecture firm Snøhetta, co-founded the company in Norway in 1989 with Kjetil Thorsen. In 2004, they opened Snøhetta offices in New York. Dykers has worked on the Alexandria Library in Egypt, for which Snøhetta was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. More recently, the firm has worked on the Opera House in Oslo, the redesign of Times Square and the Broadway Axis in New York City, and the museum at the 9/11 memorial in New York City.
FREE event, no tickets required