Lebbeus Woods
Lebbeus Woods (born 1940 in Lansing, Michigan) is an American architect and artist.[1]
Career
Woods studied architecture at the University of Illinois and engineering at Purdue University and first worked in the offices of Eero Saarinen, but in 1976 turned exclusively to theory and experimental projects.[2] He has designed buildings in Chengdu, China and Havana, Cuba.[3] In 1988, Woods co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, a nonprofit institution devoted to the advancement of experimental architectural thought and practice while promoting the concept and perception of architecture itself.
He is currently a professor of architecture at the Cooper Union in New York City and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.[1]
Philosophy
The majority of his explorations deal with the design of systems in crisis: the order of the existing being confronted by the order of the new. His designs are politically charged and provocative visions of a possible reality; provisional, local, and charged with the investment of their creators. He is best known for his proposals for San Francisco, Havana, and Sarajevo that were included in the publication of Radical Reconstruction in 1997 (Sarajevo after the war, Havana in the grips of the ongoing trade embargo, and San Francisco after the Loma Prieta earthquake).
Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.[4]
Woods, who envisions experimental constructs and environments, has stated, "the interplay of metrical systems establishing boundaries of materials and energetic forms is the foundation of a universal science (universcience) whose workers include all individuals".[This quote needs a citation]
Influence on film
Woods sued the producers of the film 12 Monkeys, claiming that they copied his work "Neomechanical Tower (Upper) Chamber". Woods won a "six figure sum", and allowed the film to continue to be screened. The end credits state that his work "inspired" the Interrogation Room set.[5]
Woods is credited as the "conceptual architect"[6] for Alien 3, establishing the look and feel of the film, especially the opening sequence.
See also
References
- ^ a b "Lebbeus Woods Faculty Page at [[European Graduate School]] (Biography, bibliography and video lectures)". European Graduate School. Retrieved 2010-09-25.
{{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help) - ^ 1994 Chrysler Design Award to Lebbeus Woods
- ^ Ouroussoff, Nicolai (2008-08-25). "An Architect Unshackled by Limits of the Real World". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
- ^ Woods, Lebbeus (2002). War and Architecture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. p. 1. ISBN 1568980116.
- ^ Copyright website on "12 Monkeys"
- ^ Film credits for "Alien 3"
External links
- www.lebbeuswoods.net
- Lebbeus Woods Faculty Page at Cooper Union School of Architecture
- Lebbeus Woods Faculty Page at European Graduate School. (Biography, bibliography and video lectures)
- Research Institute for Experimental Architecture (RIEA)
- Carnegie Museum of Arts
- Cold Bacon
- 1994 Chrysler Design Award for Lebbeus Woods citation
- Lebbeus Woods-The Reality Of Theory
- BLDGBLOG: Without Walls: An Interview with Lebbeus Woods