architecturetobiasputrihandMOS

MOS Recognized in MoMA's 10th Annual Young Architect Competition

P.S.1
Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Avenue
718-784-2084
Long Island City
Tenth Annual Young
Architects Program
June 30-September 14, 2009

The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center announce the winner of the 2009 MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program: the architectural firm MOS. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the program, which affords emerging architectural talents the opportunity to design and present innovative projects. Five finalists selected by an invited nomination process were asked to present an urban landscape for the large courtyard entrance of P.S.1, with the allotted project budget of $70,000. The architects were required to incorporate elements of shade, water, seating, and bar areas into a proposed project. MOS’s winning landscape, afterparty, will be on view in P.S.1’s outdoor courtyard starting in late June, and will serve as an immersive environment for the 2009 Warm Up summer music series.

Envisioned as an “urban shelter,” afterparty will serve as a cooling escape at the heart of P.S.1’s Warm Up music series. Before visitors enter the courtyard, a series of tall hut-like “chimneys” with dark thatched skin will be visible from the street. The interior of the conical shelter will provide shade, similar to a Bedouin tent in which the dark textile creates its own microclimate shielding from the summer heat. Cool air from the thermal mass of the courtyard's shaded concrete walls and concrete water troughs located in the center of the structure will be drawn up through a series of cooling chimneys by induction. This will create a breeze and a "cool down" atmosphere for the active Warm Up crowd.

In addition to MOS (New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts), the other finalists are !ndie architecture (Denver, Colorado), Bade Stageberg Cox (Brooklyn, New York), L.E.FT architects (New York, New York), and PARA-project (Brooklyn, New York). An exhibition of the five finalists' proposed projects will be on view at MoMA over the summer. It will be organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.

Barry Bergdoll, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA, explains, “The project proposes to deal with issues of sustainability and a return to basics, working towards climate altering through passive means, even in the context of an exhibition/party space in the P.S.1 courtyard. It consists of a lightweight aluminum frame of recyclable parts clad in a weave, allowing some light and air to circulate but at the same time shading visitors from the sunlight. Its combination of forms includes tall, chimney-like shapes, heroic cones, and others that are evocative at once of the vernacular village structures world-wide and of the open ruined vaults of the Roman Forum.”

Antoine Guerrero, P.S.1 Director of Operations and Exhibitions, adds, “From the ground up, another exciting, ephemeral transformation of our outdoor galleries will leave a lasting impression on over 50,000 summer visitors who will have the chance to cool off.”

MOS architects Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith say, “Today, we are rethinking and resituating architecture — not only its conceptual and formal economies but also its inherent ability to engage and produce visceral intimate environments. This project, afterparty, is a temporary urban shelter and passive cooling station for P.S.1 and its Warm Up events, creating an escape from the summer heat and constructing a network of large, medium, and small cellular spaces that allow for intimacy and social formations to thrive.”

For the Young Architects Program 2009 selection process, MoMA and P.S.1 invited outside experts in the field of architecture, including architects, curators, academics, and magazine editors, to nominate the finalists from a pool of approximately 40 candidates that included both recent graduates and established architects experimenting with new styles or techniques. After reviewing the candidates, five finalists were selected to present proposals to a panel composed of Glenn D. Lowry, Director; Kathy Halbreich, Associate Director; Peter Reed, Senior Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs; Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator, Department of Architecture and Design; Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media; and Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art; and Antoine Guerrero, Director of Operations and Exhibitions, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

This marks the twelfth summer that P.S.1 has hosted a combined architectural installation and music series in its outdoor galleries, though it is only the tenth year of the Young Architects Program, which began in 2000. The inaugural project was an architecturally based installation in 1998 by an Austrian artist collective, Gelatin. In 1999, Philip Johnson’s DJ Pavilion celebrated the historic affiliation of P.S.1 and MoMA. The previous winners of the Young Architects Program are SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli (2000), ROY (2001), William E. Massie (2002), Tom Wiscombe / EMERGENT (2003), nARCHITECTS (2004), Xefirotarch (2005), OBRA (2006), Ball-Nogues (2007), and WORKac (2008).

MOS is an interdisciplinary practice engaging in architecture and design through an inclusive methodology of research, expansive collaboration, and extensive experimentation. The work develops through research ranging from typology, digital production, structure, material, program and use, to larger networks of social, cultural, and environmental consideration. The scope of MOS's research constantly shifts and expands as each individual project has the potential to engage a unique set of parameters, specific to its condition. This process of "radical inclusion" allows MOS to participate in design at different scales — from product design, to private residences, to cultural institutions to large-scale urban infrastructure.

Led by Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample, MOS is based in New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts. MOS has received the P/A award, New York Urban League Emerging Voices series, •Surface• magazine's Avant-Guardian, and Architectural Record's Design Vanguard award. Current projects include a villa for Ordos 100, Inner Mongolia, China; The Ballroom Drive-In theater, Marfa, Texas; an inflatable factory in Newfoundland, Canada; and a Teen Center, Lowell, Massachusetts. Michael Meredith is an Associate Professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Hilary Sample is an Assistant Professor at the Yale University School of Architecture.

Tobias Putrih, Macula (Series B), 2006, Cardboard, Dimensions variable.

Tobias Putrih Collaborates, MOS, and a Proposal that May Never be Built

Baltic Centre
for Contemporary Art
Gateshead Quays
South Shore Road
+44 (0)191 478 1810
Gateshead
Level 2
Tobias Putrih and MOS
Overhang
10 April-31 August, 2009

For the installation at BALTIC, Tobias Putrih has collaborated with MOS studio using software, developed by principle partner Michael Meredith that calculates and generates optimal equilibrium structures. Experimenting with different parameters, they have used Styrofoam cubes and stack structures according to the basic rules of equilibrium and ‘maximum overhang stacking’ to produce a super lightweight structure on the verge of collapse. During assembly parts of the structure are supported and then the supports removed as the structure’s interlocking elements develop, creating non-equilibrium parts in equilibrium. The structure will reach high into the Level 2 space (ceiling height: 7.3meters) lending a strange monumentality to the work. A smaller brutally heavy structure from concrete acts as a model, or vice versa creating an interesting narrative.

Putrih’s work is informed by the breakdown of cultural communication between Eastern Europe and the rest of the world. His work finds its roots in the history of modernist utopian architecture, but nearly every one of his constructions undermines the seriousness and assuredness of their references. With a calculated instability, Putrih’s work exists between science, sculpture and architecture. Exploring the potential of an idea, his works could be considered proposals for objects or architectural spaces that will probably never be built. Many of his makeshift structures use materials such as cardboard and sticky tape. The resulting temporary objects beg questions about their own fragile existence, leaving irresolution and doubt; Putrih suggests every utopia anticipates a possible meltdown and every system of knowledge has its black holes.

This exhibition is presented at a time when the fragility of modernist utopian architecture can be seen on BALTIC’s doorstep as Alessandro Vincentelli, Acting Head of Programme explains: “Presenting Tobias’ work at this time is acutely poignant as we are on the eve of The Trinity Square Car Park, an iconic example of modernist architecture in Gateshead, being demolished. Western art and architecture and Putrih’s scepticism of its success is at the very heart of his work. His collaboration with Michael Meredith from MOS has resulted in an imposing towering structure whose precariousness can be contrasted to much of our own city skyline.”

Tobias Putrih, Screening Space Related to What is a Thought Experiment, Anyhow? By Runa Islam, 2007-2008, Cardboard, tape, Styrofoam, OSB plates, monofilament, metal hooks, fluorescent tubes, lights, color filters, film projectors, and screens, 26.25 x 39.37 x 16.4 feet approx., 8 x 12 x 5 meters approx.