April 30, 2020
New York Design & Architecture Culture at Your Fingertips
Attention designers, architects, and those who appreciate architecture and design. Archtober has put together a list of design activities anyone can enjoy from the comfort of their own home office or sofa. There are a variety of virtual lectures, online exhibitions, and activities to discover. Below are some highlights:
Jane’s Walk NYC (from Home) [Now through May 3]
The Municipal Society of New York (MAS) re-imagines its popular festival with a series of daily activities that allow New Yorkers to connect virtually. Since 2001, MAS has been facilitating a volunteer-led festival of ‘walking conversations’ inspired by urban activist Jane Jacobs.
Each morning at 9:00 AM, MAS announces a daily activity where New Yorker’s can connect virtually to celebrate and pay tribute to the magic of everyday life in New York. Check the MAS site for details.
UN-Habitat Global Urban Lectures [Ongoing]
UN-Habitat offers Global Urban Lectures – lecture packages focused on subjects related to cities and urbanization. Each topic consists of a 15-minute video, synopsis of the topic, biography of the speaker, and links to in-depth study, if desired. Expert speakers are from universities, think-tanks, NGOs, governments, and the private sector.
A wide variety of topics are discussed – you choose when and how many you want to explore. Below are only a few of the varied topics and speakers:
- Transforming Livelihoods in the Informal Economy (Alison Brown, Cardiff University)
- The Mobility of Care (Ines Sanchez de Madariaga)
- Networking City Leadership (Michel Acuto, University College London
Click here for all UN-Habitat Global Urban Lectures
Eileen Gray Symposium [Ongoing]
Explore Eileen Gray’s extraordinary career with the online companion to the Bard Graduate Center (BGC) exhibition, which includes several different aspects of Gray’s work – from celebrated projects to those lesser known, and recently rediscovered pieces on display for the first time. Find more at BGC’s online exhibition.
Josef Albers Color Workshop [May 22, 11:00 EST]
The Glass House is offering an hour-long color workshop led by Fritz Horstman, Director of Education at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
Working from Josef Albers’s book Interaction of Color, workshop attendees will experiment with colors that they may already have at home. Horstman will provide exercises that Albers invented in his time teaching at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale, such as One-Color-Becomes-Two, Reversed Grounds, and Afterimage.
The workshop is open to artists and non-artists. No prior experience is needed. Check The Glass House site for materials to gather prior to the workshop. Space is limited, so be sure to register for the workshop early.
Nature By Design: Botanical Expressions [Ongoing]
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum offers this online exhibition through Google Arts & Culture. Explore how botanical forms were interpreted by notables in the decorative arts from the late-18th through the early-20th centuries.
Work from Christopher Dresser, Emile Gallé, William Morris, and Louis Comfort Tiffany shows how blooms, gardening, and the natural sciences influenced and inspired designs of the time. This online exhibition allows for truly up-close high-res viewing, only possible online.
If you’re accustomed to getting your ongoing fill of New York culture, there is plenty to keep you informed and engaged in the month ahead.