FILMS + BOOKS
COURTESY OF MONGREL MEDIA
FILM SERIES KICK-OFF PARTY
Wednesday, September 5, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Jean Nouvel: Reflections"(15 min.)
"BIG Time" (1 hr. 30 min.)
Hermary’s, 295 Kansas Street
AIA Member: $10; General: $15
EVENT ENDED
Kick off this year's film series with "Jean Nouvel: Reflections" which reflects on Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel and "BIG Time" which follows Danish architect Bjarke Ingels over a period of 5 years while he is struggling to complete his largest projects yet, the New York skyscraper called W57 and 2 World Trade Center, projects that will change the skyline of Manhattan.
COURTESY OF MONGREL MEDIA
Wednesday, September 12, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post Street
"Gattaca (1997) (1 hr. 46 min.)
Free Admission (RSVP Required)
EVENT ENDED
Cult classic American science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin appearing in supporting roles. The film presents a biopunk vision of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents.
KARL NIELSEN
Wednesday, September 19, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Picturing Resilience: Engaging Communities
San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin Street
Free Admission (RSVP Required)
In the recent year-long Resilient by Design Challenge nine multi-disciplinary teams worked alongside local communities and governments around San Francisco Bay to develop plans to strengthen the Bay Area’s resilience to sea level rise, severe storms, flooding and earthquakes. Our program features several short films by Resilient by Design teams followed by a panel discussion and audience Q &A focused on community engagement and reaching new audiences.
Presenters: Allison Brooks, Chair, Resilient By Design Executive Board; John Rahaim, Planning Director, City and County of San Francisco; Richard Kennedy, Senior Principal, RLA, James Corner Field Operations; Richard Mullane, Principal, HASSELL; Marcel Wilson, ALSA, PLA, Founder/Director, Bionic
Friday, September 7, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Towards a Robotic Architecture: From 3-D Printing to Life on Mars
Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post Street
AIA/Mechanics’ Institute Member: $10 | General: $15
EVENT ENDED
Drawing from inspirations of Even When They Do Nothing, Robots Are Evocative: Towards a Robotic Architecture (ORO Editions), this talk and presentation features Petr Novikov, Head of Research and Development at Asmbld, on the state-of-the-art technology that is being researched and developed to create buildings on the “Red Planet.” Petr is an expert in construction robotics and advanced
construction technologies. In 2014 together with Fedor Novikov he founded a company Asmbld, with a focus on the development of reconfigurable buildings and architectural robotics. Prior to that Petr co-lead a research team at Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia together with Saša Jokić. The team’s objective was to design a system of construction robots capable of building structures exceeding them in size, which was successfully realized in the project Minibuilders. Petr has led and participated in development of multiple widely recognized research endeavours in the field of large-scale additive fabrication, such as Mataerial and Mars Ice House. Petr co-invented and patented a novel 3D printing method, that doesn’t require support material. His work in the field of construction robotics resulted in multiple scientific papers, his projects were exhibited in venues such as Design Museum London and Vitra Design Museum and won many awards.
Monday, September 10, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
Medium Design | lecture by Keller Easterling
Academy of Art University, School of Architecture
601 Brannan St.
Free Admission (registration required)
Suggested sliding scale donation
(supports Architecture + the City): $5 - $10
EVENT ENDED
[SEE "EXAMINING FUTURE URBAN CONDITIONS" FOR RELATED EXHIBITION]
Keller Easterling, architect, writer and professor at Yale University will elaborate on her most recent book, Medium Design (Strelka Press, 2018). Privileging declarations, right answers, proofs, and universals, culture is often banging away with the same blunt tools
that are completely inadequate to address contemporary chemistries of power. On the flip side of these logics, Medium Design offers no dramatic manifestos where things are new or right. Instead it only rehearses a habit of mind that has been eclipsed. Even at a moment of digital ubiquity, Medium Design treats space as an information system and a broad, inclusive mixing chamber for many social, political, technical networks. And just as it inverts the typical focus on object over field, it may also invert some habitual approaches to problem solving, aesthetics and politics.
Friday, September 14, 12:00 – 1:30 PM
The Man Who Designed the Future: Norman Bel Geddes and the Invention of Twentieth-Century America
TOTO Concept 190, 190 King Street, San Francisco
AIA Member: $10 | General: $15; Lunch included
EVENT ENDED
Before there was Steve Jobs, there was Norman Bel Geddes: a flamboyant designer whose meteoric career would see him reimagining everything from Broadway sets and the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to the controversial automobile the Chrysler Airflow. His designs included the first all-weather stadium, the first floating airport, and the spectacular Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair, the most iconic Fair exhibit of all time.
In The Man Who Designed the Future: Norman Bel Geddes and the Invention of 20th Century America (Melville House),author B. Alexandra Szerlip reveals precisely how central Bel Geddes was to the history of American innovation. He presided over a moment in which theater became immersive, function merged with form, and people became consumers. A polymath with humble Midwestern origins, Bel Geddes’s visionary career would launch him into social circles with the Algonquin roundtable members, stars of stage and screen, and titans of industry. B. Alexandra Szerlip was named one of the Top Ten Arts Books of 2017 by the American Library Association and a Book of the Year by London’s Spectator.