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SCI-Arc Announces Year of Public Programs Honoring 50th Anniversary

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SCI-Arc
Photography:
Top left to right: Bernard Tschumi, Anupama Kundoo, Catherine Opie. Middle left to right: Erin Besler, Héctor Esrawe, Ana María León. Bottom left to right: Mario Gooden, Sekou Cooke, Liam Young

SCI-Arc events are always free and open to the public. 

In July of 1972, on the heels of the revolutionary 1960s, an era of social unrest interwoven with radical shifts in our collective cultural, scientific, and artistic imagination, a group of rebels and idealists dared to imagine a new kind of architecture institution—a school without walls—and SCI-Arc was born. The school has functioned since as a scion of visionary thinking, a hub for exploratory discourse, and a laboratory for innovating the medium of architecture.

For 50 years, SCI-Arc has been restless, bold, and optimistic. We celebrate the relentlessness of the figures and forces that created a movement never-before-seen in architecture education, that embraces the audacity of ever-shifting visions ahead.SCI-Arc is ecstatic to share plans to honor its monumental 50th anniversary this year—a year which has seen extraordinary parallels in the social and cultural foundations from which the school originally emerged; a time indelibly shaped by climate crises, a global pandemic, and racial uprising.

Starting this month, and throughout 2022, the school will be commemorating this banner milestone with special events, lectures, podcasts, public programs, exhibitions, editorial features, community initiatives, and more to honor the myriad contributions SCI-Arc has made to revolutionizing architecture and architecture education across the past five decades.

SCI-Arc’s always-extraordinary public programs will be organized this year by category, falling under SCI-Arc Lectures, SCI-Arc Exhibitions, SCI-Arc in the Community, SCI-Arc Futures, and SCI-Arc Mythologies.

In addition to a phenomenal and illuminating series of lectures and exhibitions, SCI-Arc Channel will be releasing the 50 + 50 Film Series, engaging various topics around the school, entitled (respectively) Into Past and Future, Architecture and the Arts, A College Without Walls, Archiving the Future, A Thesis School, Exhibitions and Curatorial Perspectives, and Building a Legacy. Editorial series SCI-Arc Histories will regale the stories and characters of SCI-Arc’s rich legacy in writing.

SCI-Arc’s Main Event returns with a special gala celebration honoring architect Frank Gehry, visual artist Alison Saar, Walt Disney Imagineering, and the Herald Examiner Building/Georgetown Company. Attendees will enjoy the most remarkable work of SCI-Arc students on display at a preview of Spring Show, as well as a gala dinner, awards, and after-hours party.

A 50th Anniversary Podcast will provide a monumental, historical look back at the founding of SCI-Arc as a radical alternative to architecture education in the 1970s, hosted by History + Theory Coordinator Marrikka Trotter, and featuring Shelly Kappe, Thom Mayne, Ahde Lahti, Bill Simonian, Glen Small, Vicky Simonian, Margaret Crawford, Annie Chu, Sylvia Lavin, and Jim Stafford, among many others.

School-wide symposia will entail lively, interactive discourse, including a dual series of talks SCI-Arc: Tables + SCI-Arc: Chairs, wherein faculty, students, and renowned figures in the field will delve into the state and future of the discipline.

Taking the lead in reimagining the limits of architecture, our past propels us into the future, producing the next generation of risktakers who will push us towards what the next 50 years can be. Join us in celebrating SCI-Arc, as we recollect the past 50 years to reimagine the next 50.

More information can be found on the SCI-Arc website here.

Admission and access to SCI-Arc-hosted public events and exhibitions are always free and open to the public. Visit https://sciarc.edu/events/ for any updates, changes, and for more information about upcoming lectures. All events begin at 6pm unless otherwise noted and are broadcast live online on SCI-Arc’s Vimeo and Facebook page.

SCI-ARC LECTURES

Michael Rotondi

TBA, 6pm PT
W.M. Keck Hall

Héctor Esrawe

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Ana María León

February 9, 6pm PT

Virtual Lecture

Mario Gooden

February 23, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Erin Besler (M.Arch '12)

March 2, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Anupama Kundoo

March 9, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Sekou Cooke

March 21, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Liam Young

March 30, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Catherine Opie

April 6, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

 

Eric Owen Moss

October 5, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Neil M. Denari

November 2, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Deborah Garcia (B.Arch '17)

November 9, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Lauren Halsey

November 30, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Steven Holl

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Bernard Tschumi

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Timothy Morton with Laurie Anderson

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Shigeru Ban (B.Arch '80)

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

David Adjaye

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall

Zhu Pei

TBA, 6pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall


SCI-ARC EXHIBITIONS


Lucy McRae

FUTUREKIN

February 18 - April 17

Reception: February 18, 5pm PT

SCI-Arc Gallery

Spring Show: The Land of Ahhs

Curated by Jeremy Kamal

Hartley, Kordae Henry, and

William Virgil

Opens May 1 to the public

Throughout SCI-Arc
Purchase tickets for the VIP

preview on April 30

at sciarc.edu/mainevent.

William Virgil

July 8 - August 21

Reception: July 8, 6pm PT

SCI-Arc Gallery

Selected Thesis

September 23 - October 2

Reception: September 23, 6pm PT

SCI-Arc Gallery

Damjan Jovanovic

Lifeforms.io

October 21 - December 18

Reception: October 21, 6pm PT

SCI-Arc Gallery

SCI-ARC FUTURES

SCI-Arc + Laboratory

for Suburbia

March 31, 12pm-2pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall


Duel + Duet

TBA Fridays, 5pm PT

W.M. Keck Hall


SCI-Arc Tables

Symposium

TBA

W.M. Keck Hall


SCI-Arc Chairs

Symposium

TBA

W.M. Keck Hall

SCI-ARC IN THE COMMUNITY

Inscriptions:

Architecture Before

Speech

Edited by K. Michael Hays

and Andrew Holder

February 25, 5pm PT

Book Launch

 

Black Lives Matter

Week of Action

TBA February

W.M. Keck Hall


Getty + SCI-Arc

Symposium

TBA Fall 2022

W.M. Keck Hall


UNDER PRESSURE.

Essays on Urban Housing.

By Hina Jamell

March 18, 5pm PT

Book Launch


Main Event:

Honoring Frank Gehry, Alison

Saar, the Herald Examiner

Building/Georgetown Company,

and Walt Disney Imagineering
Purchase tickets at sciarc.edu/mainevent.

April 30

Dinner: 6pm

After-hours party: 8:30pm

Throughout campus


Queer Perspectives

in Architecture

Film Screening
June 24

W.M. Keck Hall


All-Alumni Reunion

Honoring the Class of 1997

+ Community Block Party

November 5

SCI-Arc/Arts District


SCI-Arc x LACMA

TBA


SCI-ARC MYTHOLOGIES

SCI-Arc:

Electrocardiogram

Designed by Morphosis

April 30

South Gallery Entrance


50th Anniversary

Podcast:

Hosted by Marrikka Trotter,
featuring Shelly Kappe,

Thom Mayne, Ahde Lahti, Bill

Simonian, Glen Small, Jim

Stafford, Vicky Simonian,

Margaret Crawford, Annie Chu,
and Sylvia Lavin, among others

Spotify + iTunes


50 + 50

SCI-Arc Channel Film Series

channel.sciarc.edu


SCI-Arc Histories

news.sciarc.edu


Kappe Diem

 

Public Programs

Events are broadcast live online on SCI-Arc’s Vimeo and Facebook page.

SCI-Arc Public Programs are subject to change. For the most current information, please visit sciarc.edu or call 213-613-2200.

 

About SCI-Arc

Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is dedicated to educating architects who will imagine and shape the future. It is an independent, accredited degree-granting institution offering undergraduate and graduate programs in architecture. Located in a quarter-mile-long former freight depot in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles, the school is distinguished by its vibrant studio culture and emphasis on process. SCI-Arc’s approximately 500 students and 80 faculty members, most of whom are practicing architects, work together to reexamine assumptions, create, explore, and test the limits of architecture. SCI-Arc faculty and leadership have garnered more than 500 national and international design awards and recognitions, including Progressive Architecture awards, American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, and the prestigious Jencks and Pritzker architecture prizes. In DesignIntelligence’s 2020 US survey, SCI-Arc ranked #2 in Design Technologies, #3 Most Hired From, and was top 10 among the nation’s Most Admired Undergraduate Programs in Architecture. SCI-Arc is located at 960 E. 3rd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013. www.sciarc.edu


By Naser Nader Ibrahim

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