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Jeffrey Kipnis: The Latest Architecture and News

What is Architecture? Notions from Odile Decq, Snøhetta, Pita & Bloom and Jeffrey Kipnis

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Simple in form but complex in substance, “What is Architecture?” remains an existential question for a lot of architecture students and young professionals. In an attempt to define this ever-changing interrogation and expose the different visions out there, the interview series: WIA – What is architecture? asks four, straightforward, questions to world-leading architectural designers and thinkers. Seeking to uncover their opinion on what architecture is and what it can do, these short videos reveal responses to “What is architecture? What can architecture do? What is your architectural position? and What is your design method?”.

ArchDaily has collaborated with WIA to release every week, 4 of these conversations, and to invite you to take on the challenge and answer these questions. This second article of the series highlights the ideas and visions of Odile Decq from Studio Decq, Kjetil Thorsen from Snøhetta, Florencia Pita & Jackilin Hah Bloom from Pita & Bloom, an architectural design collaborative based in Los Angeles, and Jeffrey Kipnis, an American architectural critic and theorist.

Video: Steven Holl and Jeffrey Kipnis in Conversation

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In this fascinating conversation, critic and theorist Jeffrey Kipnis and architect Steven Holl discuss modern architecture, from competitions to cantilevers, courtesy of our friends at 32BNY.

Venice Biennale 2012: The Piranesi Variations / Peter Eisenman

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Venice Biennale 2012: The Piranesi Variations / Peter Eisenman - Image 14 of 4
Field of Dreams / Ohio State University Knowlton School of Architecture © Nico Saieh

Inspired by the 13th International Architecture Exhibition‘s theme Common Ground, Peter Eisenman has formed a team to revisit, examine and reimagine Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s 1762 folio collection of etchings, Campo Marzio dell’antica Roma. Derived from years of fieldwork spent measuring the remains of ancient Roman buildings, these six etchings depict Piranesi’s fantastical vision of what ancient Rome might have looked like and represent a landmark in the shift from a traditionalist, antiquarian view of history to the scientific, archaeological view.

Eisenman’s team consists of Eisenman Architects, students from Yale University, Jeffrey Kipnis with his colleagues and students of the Ohio State University, and Belgian architecture practice, Dogma. Each group has contributed a response to Piranesi’s work through models and drawings that stimulate discourse on contemporary architecture. In particular, they explore architecture’s relationship to the ground and the political, social, and philosophical consequences that develop from that relationship.

Venice Biennale 2012: The Piranesi Variations / Peter Eisenman - Image 15 of 4
The Project of Campo Marzio / Yale University School of Architecture © Nico Saieh

Described as “precise, specific, yet impossible”, Piranesi’s images have been a source of speculation, inspiration, research and contention for architects, urban designers and scholars since their publication 250 years ago. Continue after the break to learn more.