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THE D R AWI N G CENTER
Lebbeus Woods Architect
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art San Francisco, California February 16 –June 2, 2013 Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan November 22, 2013–February 23, 2014 The Drawing Center New York, New York April 17–June 15, 2014
Lebbeus Woods Architect
Curated by Joseph Becker and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher
D R A W I N G P A P E R S 11 4
Foreword by Brett Littman Essays by Joseph Becker and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher
Foreword
Lebbeus Woods, Architect, organized by Joseph Becker, Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design, and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Helen Hilton Raiser Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, brings together works from the past forty years by one of the most influential figures in contemporary architecture. Woods has been hailed as a significant voice not only by architects, but also by designers, filmmakers, writers, and artists. The conceptual depth, imaginative breadth, lasting beauty, and ethical potency of his work resonate across many disciplines. The exhibition centers on transformation as a recurring theme in Woods’s practice, providing a framework for understanding its experimental nature. The Drawing Center’s interest in hosting Lebbeus Woods, Architect stems from our long-standing history of showcasing the work of visionary “paper” architects like Frederick Kiesler, Yona Friedman, and Iannis Xenakis. Woods dreamed up innovative creations unbound by the rules of nature or society. He envisioned underground cities and floating buildings that go far beyond the idea of form and shelter. His architecture deals with the moral, technological, and ecological impact that humans have on this planet. His highly theoretical and exploratory practice was captured in hundreds of sketchbooks. Woods was a visual thinker whose ideas could only be expressed through the medium of drawing. Instead of architectural plans intended to serve as the basis for completed structures, Woods’s drawings are projections that convey radical ideas as their end result.
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I wish to offer my profuse thanks to Joseph Becker and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for their expertise in curating this provocative exhibition and for writing such insightful essays for our Drawing Papers. I am grateful to Aleksandra Wagner, Lebbeus Woods’s widow, for her unwavering support of this exhibition and for providing invaluable access to Woods’s estate and the loan of many works. I would also like to acknowledge our board member Steven Holl for his enthusiasm for the presentation of Lebbeus Woods, Architect at The Drawing Center. Holl’s long-term friendship and collaboration with Woods and respect for his work informs this endeavor. Thanks are due as well to those institutions and individuals who generously agreed to loan works: the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Los Angeles; Marc Benda at Friedman Benda Gallery, New York; the Collection of Jo Berkus and Estate of Barry Berkus; Craig Hartman and Jan O’Brien; Blythe and Thom Mayne; and John Sanger. At The Drawing Center, I want to thank my enthusiastic staff for their efforts in mounting this exhibition: Joanna Ahlberg, Managing Editor; Peter J. Ahlberg, AHL&CO; Dan Gillespie, Operations Manager; Nicole Goldberg, former Deputy Director for External Affairs; Molly Gross, Communications Director; Anna Martin, Registrar; Joanna Romanow, Assistant Curator; and Margaret Sundell, Executive Editor. Lebbeus Woods, Architect is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition at The Drawing Center is made possible by the generous support of Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, Steven Holl and 32BNY, Edward Cella Art + Architecture, Friedman Benda, and Stéphane Samuel and Robert Melvin Rubin. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. —Brett Littman, Executive Director
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Drawn In: The Rendered Visions of Lebbeus Woods Joseph Becker
Peter Cook, the esteemed architect and co-founder of the 1960s and 1970s avant-garde studio Archigram, declared that the essence of architecture lies more in the drawings that depict the built form than in the completed buildings themselves.1 His assertion resonates unmistakably in the life’s work of Lebbeus Woods. Born in Lansing, Michigan, in 1940, Woods trained as an engineer at Purdue and an architect at the University of Illinois. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, he held appointments as a designer for multiple architecture studios, entrenching himself in the production and realization of buildings and environments. Feeling stifled by the corporate model, Woods moved to New York to start his own practice—one focused on addressing architecture in a self-guided way and from a more conceptual and philosophical perspective. Actively pursuing his own mode of investigational and theoretical architecture from 1976 until his death in 2012, Woods played a key role in the development and articulation of an exploratory architectural discourse that has continued to expand and inspire countless practitioners. Approaching both the field and the medium of architecture with a visionary spirit, he dedicated his career to the principle that, while a spatial practice, architecture is fundamentally a means of facilitating and altering our perception, use, and experience of space. Correspondingly, the methods through which these perceptual opportunities are presented extend beyond built form, and their success lies in their ability to stimulate, or aggravate, our 1
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Peter Cook, Drawing: The Motive Force of Architecture (London and Chichester, England: Wiley, 2008), 60.
imagination. Woods was firm in his convictions and didn’t shy away from announcing them. “I don’t care very much about building buildings,” he once avowed, “I care about building ideas.”2 Whether through plans and sections, details, or renderings of hypothetical or realized structures in situ, drawing—the indispensable tool of visualization and exploration—lies at the heart of architectural discourse. Architects rely on technical drawings to provide the details with which to realize and represent significant structures, but the history of architectural drawing also evinces an ongoing fascination with the medium’s illusionistic potential. Through their use of single-point perspective and the axonometric, among other techniques, architectural renderings present convincing tableaux of habitable and experiential structures. The act of drawing enables the visual expression of an idea, the representation of a thought, the revelation of a place, site, or space that may otherwise be non-existent. Renderings can explore the vagaries of form, the vision of what could be, the projection of our assumptions. And as a rendering, the drawing acts as a portal into the realm of possibility. In Woods’s practice, the final edifice—the concrete assurance of permanence—isn’t of principal concern. Realized largely through the medium of drawing, Woods’s work presents proposals for form and function that often invert our normal modes of spatial and structural understanding. While he did build full-scale inhabitable installations (mostly temporary but some permanent), he saw these more as the extension of the drawing’s genesis—essentially an opportunity to experience the drawing itself in three dimensions. Woods’s work challenged—and continues to challenge—conventional interpretations of architecture. For example, in Aerial Paris, 1989, a new city hovers over Paris, harnessing electromagnetic energy to stay aloft. Disengaged from the world below, a network of inhabitable spaces operates under new sociopolitical structures, freed from ideological symbolism. Perhaps fantasy, a project such as this nonetheless pushes our conception of architecture’s role in society: need it continually 2
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Lebbeus Woods. 2010. Rendering Speculations. Paper presented at Architectural Association (AA), School of Architecture, London, http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/ VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=1220.
perpetuate traditional organizational modes, or might architecture resist them with new ideas of how we build, use, and live in space. Each of Woods’s drawings depicts an opportunity—not a declaration of finality—presenting his vision of the heuristic environment as one meant to inspire and provoke not only other architects, but philosophers, social scientists, engineers, cultural anthropologists, and beyond. Today, architectural renderings are realized in glittering multimedia; nonetheless, composition and technical expertise remain paramount. In this, architectural drawing stays the course, maintaining its purpose as a tool for the communication of ideas. We live in a hypervisual, hyperconnected, and “instant” world; the pure honesty of the hand drawing, the tactility of the page, and the efforts of manual craft seem to be farther and farther from present modes of architectural discourse. Looking at Woods’s drawings, by contrast, there is an awareness of the process, a keen understanding of the layering of line, and the mastery of the tools that today’s digital renderings often conceal and obscure. Whether combining collaged photographs and drawing, as in the project San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995, or rendering entirely in black crosshatched chiaroscuro, as in Einstein Tomb, 1980, the artist’s hand, aptitude, and facility, are present. Indeed, it is no stretch to consider Lebbeus Woods the most influential and prolific architectural renderer of our contemporary era. Through a conceptual vision and a technical prowess that remains unmatched, he brought thousands of environments to vivid life. Woods’s imagination never shied from proposing the extremes of rampant construction and destruction (as its inevitable counterpart) and, in the latter part of his career, pure abstraction and formal experimentation. He was uncensored and unbridled and within the medium of drawing, was free from the constraints of our physical and political world to delve into alternative, hypothetical, and parallel realities of the built environment. His was an architecture that need not be constructed to be provocative, a practice that revolved around the materialization of ideas first and the manifestation of forms second. Through the tools and the language of architecture and engineering, his drawings, along with his models and installations, convincingly unlocked the vast potential of built space.
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There is no architecture devoid of experience, and Woods’s drawings make a case for the experience of architecture to alter both individual and collective engagement. Consider for example, his Free Zone projects from the early 1990s. The drawings pull viewers into a seemingly impossible place, challenging our common assumptions of how buildings work and yielding an architectural unknown. In them, ceiling and floor plates slant and twist, spaces compress and verge on becoming unoccupiable. Electromechanical elements hint at some mysterious function or performance. Proposing a new kind of architecture liberated from predetermined and presupposed usage, the Free Zones allow us to imagine new and yet-to-be discovered relationships with the constructed world. Woods insisted on the built environment’s capability to act as a catalyst—to provide an opportunity for non-normative engagement through social and political heterarchies (to use his term) that defy the top-down rules of existing hierarchical systems. He saw architecture as participating in our lives—not just as the stage for events to play out on and in, but somehow as the event itself. The exhibition, Lebbeus Woods, Architect serves as an introduction to the themes and connections that he explored, venturing beyond widely held notions of what architecture is and how it is supposed to perform. In looking at the work on view, one is confronted with big, potentially unanswerable, socially- and politically-charged questions about architecture’s capacities. Can architecture preempt, or even harness, seismic activity, as proposed in Inhabiting the Quake. Can architecture subvert an ideological battleground to make way for clear social and cultural transmissions, as in the 1988 DMZ from Terra Nova designed for Korea’s demilitarized zone. Can architecture exist as pure fields of energy, as lines and vectors floating in a spatial ether, as in the Conflict Space drawings from 2006. Tracing a forty-year career arc, the exhibition highlights the drawings and models that reveal a progression of attention and intellect: the exploratory utopic projects that imagine sweeping urban scenarios; the conflict projects, which deal with political resistance and a new future; and the rich and unthrottled investigations into the spatial abstract. Whether drawn in pocket-sized sketchbooks or on wall-sized linen, whether assembled by collage or layers of ink and colored pencil, the drawings
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in this exhibition are built and constructed, line by line—an assemblage and process analogous to the creation of buildings. Experimental Architecture has long been a focus of the Architecture and Design Department at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In the thirty-year history of the museum’s architecture and design collecting and programming, one figure has been the subject of more attention than almost any other: Lebbeus Woods. This exhibition, originating at SFMOMA, and presented subsequently at the Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and The Drawing Center, highlights the work of an unwaveringly dedicated philosopher, professor, theorist, and artist. Woods’s passing in 2012 remains a tremendous loss, not just to the architectural community. He was an epistemologist, constantly peeling back the curtain on our processes of thought and action. He drew inspiration from science, philosophy, and art, and, in turn, has had a profound influence on many outside his field. Woods’s impact on architecture over the past four decades is unparalleled. His legacy is felt through his drawings and models, his installations and exhibitions, his collaborations and publications, his teaching and lecturing—all of which are equally marked by his insistent exploration of the boundaries of architectural practice. Woods’s work is radical: it is visionary in its reach and risky in its proposals. It is an architecture of disruption and of resistance—an architecture that challenges the normative condition, the status quo, the comfortable, familiar, and safe. His projects upend our known hierarchical formulas and pose far-reaching questions about the built environment as it relates to social engagement, political conflict, and environmental change. In his own words, he was “very interested in what architecture could become” and spent his life’s work probing that potential.3
3
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Lebbeus Woods, 2006. Public lecture delivered at California College of the Arts, September 14.
Lebbeus Woods: An Architecture of Dialogue and Resistance Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher
In a 1971 essay, Peter Eisenman asked if conceptual architecture was possible.1 He was aware of Conceptualism in art, which emerged in the 1960s as, among other things, a reaction against the formalist orientation of high modernism. The Conceptualists questioned if art was necessarily a realized form, proposing instead that it was the artist’s concept or intention. Eisenman saw parallels in architecture as members of the field responded to the dominant architectural movement known as International Style, which, like modernism in art, was becoming purely an aesthetic—and no longer a conceptually-infused—practice. Eisenman was the founding director of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), a small New York nonprofit organization that led the discussion on rethinking education, research, and theory in architecture from the late 1960s to the early 1980s through publications, critical debates, and exhibitions. Eisenman’s interest in conceptual architecture stressed what he called a post-functional approach to form; he felt that it wasn’t architecture’s place to solve—or even address—societal issues. But, as architect Lebbeus Woods and others would demonstrate, Eisenman’s was not the only way of thinking about conceptual architecture. A 1976 IAUS exhibition, Idea as Model, curated by Andrew MacNair, proposed that the architect’s concept was architecture regardless of whether it was realized. The exhibition featured
1
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Peter Eisenman, “Notes on Conceptual Architecture: Towards a Definition,” Design Quarterly, no. 78/79 (1970): 1–5.
design proposals by Eisenman, alongside fellow architects Michael Graves and Richard Meier. Gordon Matta-Clark, an artist and “anarchitect,” who, like Eisenman, studied architecture at Cornell University, was also invited to participate. Matta-Clark proposed shooting out a couple of cracked windows at the Institute and using the window frames to hold a series of photographs he had taken of vandalized windows in a housing project in the Bronx entitled Window Blowout.2 However, during his work’s “installation,” an inebriated Matta-Clark blew out all the windows of the Institute, while loudly railing against the ineffectiveness of architectural theory given the current urban condition, which included, among other things, substandard public housing.3 In the same year, after a decade of working in corporate architecture firms, Lebbeus Woods opened his own practice in Manhattan. Until early 2012, when he completed his first, permanent structure, Woods’s work was entirely conceptual, although he preferred the term experimental.4 His architecture existed in drawings, models, texts, lectures, and installations; it was witnessed in the classroom, on the page, and in the gallery. It was a practice in deep conversation with other architects, much like Eisenman’s had been; however, it also recognized and forcefully addressed the existing built environment, like Matta Clark’s. It was architecture for the mind, but a mind attached to a body that experiences architecture—its protection and fragility, its limitations and provocations. Lebbeus Woods put forward designs that identified socio-political imperatives for architecture, while also pushing the discipline’s formal capabilities. For Woods, a conceptual practice was only possible if it remained free from government, private, and corporate funding. Like many New-York-based practitioners active in the early 1980s, he was deeply
2
3
4
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Pamela M. Lee, Object to Be Destroyed: The Work of Gordon Matta-Clark (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 115-116. Interestingly, while IAUS’s windows were boarded up in time for the exhibition’s opening, Matta Clark’s Window Blowout photographs were still included in the exhibition; they did not, however, appear in the Idea as Model book Eiseman coauthored with Richard Pommer in 1980. Woods’s sole permanent structure, the Light Pavilion, was completed in October 2012 and exists within a housing complex in Chengdu, China, designed by Steven Holl.
suspicious of capitalism’s imposition on built architecture.5 Lower Manhattan—where Woods lived and worked—was common ground for a backlash against corporate culture; the neighborhood housed the Mudd Club and CBGB’s, where New York’s alternative punk and performance scenes thrived, and was the site of the graffiti art movement led by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1982, a small storefront gallery opened in this setting—appropriately titled Storefront for Art and Architecture. The nonprofit, independent institution was founded by Kyong Park—an architect who took classes at IAUS when Eisenman was Director—to stimulate discussion, experimentation, and reflection in art and design. Storefront’s first solo exhibition by an architect was Woods’s Centers: Three Public Building Projects, which opened in November 1984. It included three projects that challenged conventional city grids by introducing the concept of human-centered design, or centricity, for urban areas. Over the following ten years, Woods’s work was included in eight Storefront exhibitions, which presented his concepts of heterarchy (a utopian antithesis of hierarchy); ideology-free spaces, which he called freespaces and free-zones; and architecture as a political act, as seen in his multi-year project War and Architecture. IAUS and Storefront were part of a significant shift in the discussion and display of architecture in the United States. Instead of presenting documentation of finished structures, architects began to create new works for exhibitions in the form of drawings, plans, models, and even ambitious spatial environments. This altered the content of many architecture exhibitions: from retrospective presentations to provocative and topical responses. The gallery became a space of dialogue that broadened the conversation on the role of architecture. Along with Woods, New-York-based practitioners such as Diller + Scofidio and Neil Denari viewed the gallery as a site for launching
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In a recent talk, architect Neil Denari spoke of Philip Johnson’s 1984 statement, “I am a whore and I am paid very well for high-rise buildings,” as a watershed moment. Thom Mayne and Neil Denari on Lebbeus Woods. 2013. Talk held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, February 21.
an architecture practice. Rather than pursue clients for built work, they were actively producing projects for the white-walled gallery cube. Presenting critical architecture in galleries—particularly ones open to the general public like the Storefront—expanded the medium’s accessibility, engaging architects as well as non-architects in an awareness and discussion of the built environment.6 The experimental work shown in galleries was often unbuildable—sometimes purposely so, sometimes because the architect’s imagination surpassed construction and funding capacities. Since the early 1990s, the tools for design have changed drastically. As technology enabled the realization of their radical forms, many of the experimental architects who presented conceptual projects at the Storefront in the 1980s and 1990s have expanded their practice to include built work. Woods, however, soldiered on in capitalism’s margins, maintaining the once-more-widely-held view that it was a badge of honor to operate outside the system of building codes and policies. In addition to architecture, Woods studied engineering. He worked very hard to propose designs in his drawings that literally could not be built. This effort was not simply an act of creativity, but one of resistance. Until his death in 2012, Woods remained in dialogue with many of the architects whose work was shown alongside his early in their careers. Thom Mayne, Steven Holl, and Denari, whose built structures have garnered many accolades, speak reverentially about their relationship with Woods. His refusal to build was not seen as a weakness, rather the opposite. Architectural historian Anthony Vidler called Woods, “Architecture’s moral compass.” 7 Woods was particularly astute at identifying the incongruencies that
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As a further means of disseminating architectural ideas, in 1987, Woods co-founded the Research Institute of Experimental Architecture (RIEA). Woods compared the effort to form a research institute to one already established by scientists, whose “ideas must be taken up and tested by others to be considered valid, true, even useful.” “RIEA: The Back Story,” Lebbeus Woods (blog), June 25, 2011, http://lebbeuswoods. wordpress.com/2011/06/25/riea-the-back-story/. Anthony Vidler. 2013. Towards an Other Architecture: Lebbeus Woods and 20th Century Resistance. Public lecture delivered at California College of the Arts, February 18.
governed built architecture. His conceptual works pose essential questions about the perception of architecture and urban design: Why should a structure appear safe when it’s erected on an earthquake fault line? Does razing war-damaged buildings suppress the past? Are all architectural constructions ideological monuments? Perhaps the very acuity of Woods’s insight made it impossible for him to create structures that would be subjected to policies he found deceptive and ethically suspect.8 Woods’s level of resolve was not easy to sustain financially. Over the years, he exhibited his drawings and models regularly and sometimes sold works. In 1987, he became a professor at Cooper Union, which until recently was one of America’s only tuition-free universities. He was invited to lecture frequently and was commissioned to create large-scale installations at a number of international institutions. From 2008-2012, he maintained an active blog, posting writings on many of the same topics he addressed in his works. All of these aspects of his practice were a means of engaging in conversations— with students, colleagues, the public—about architecture. His architecture didn’t propose solutions, it identified opportunities to transform accepted but problematic practices. The first museum exhibition to be held since his death, Lebbeus Woods, Architect speaks not just to architects but to anyone who navigates public and private space. Woods’s work calls on the viewer to consider architecture’s function as propaganda, as oppression, as camouflage—and to imagine an alternate architecture that is flexible, free, and transparent. As this awareness takes hold, one recognizes that no matter the form, built architecture is a reification of a very particular—and often fleeting—power; whereas, the gallery offers architects a space of discourse and resistance.
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Although a permanent structure, the Light Pavilion was intended as a work of experimental architecture. It is not inhabited but passed through, offering a new spatial environment. Still, it must have been subject to civic regulation, which suggests a change in Woods’s attitude, shortly before his death, toward building within his own practice.
PL . 1
Einstein Tomb, 1980
PL . 2
Einstein Tomb, 1980
PL . 3
Einstein Tomb, 1980
PL . 4
Einstein Tomb, 1980
PL . 5
Einstein Tomb, 1980
PL . 6
Aeon, 1981
PL . 7
Aeon, 1981
PL . 8
Sector 1576N, Quad 2NR, from A-City, 1987
PL . 9
Sector 1576N, from A-City, 1986
PL . 10
Centricity, 1986–87
PL . 11
Archimatical Invention 1, from Centricity, 1986–87
PL . 12
Centricity, 1987
PL . 13
Centricity, 1987
PL . 14
Concentric Field, from Centricity, 1987
PL . 15
D-QUAD. OAN: Biomechanical and Biodynamic Towers, from Centricity, 1987
PL . 16
Neomechanical Tower, Upper Chamber, from Centricity, 1987
PL . 17
Photon Kite, from Centricity, 1988
PL . 18
DMZ, from Terra Nova, 1988
PL . 19
DMZ, from Terra Nova, 1988
PL . 20
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 21
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 22
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 23
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 24
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 25
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 26
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 27
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 28
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 29
Aerial Paris, 1989
PL . 30
Aerial Paris, 1989
PL . 31
Aerial Paris, 1989
PL . 32
Aerial Paris, 1989
PL . 33
Aerial Paris, 1989
PL . 34
Aerial Paris, 1989
PL . 35
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
PL . 36
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
PL . 37
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
PL . 38
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
PL . 39
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
PL . 40
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
PL . 41
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
PL . 42
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
PL . 43
Zagreb Free Zone (detail), 1991
PL . 44
Zagreb Free Zone (detail), 1991
PL . 45
Zagreb Free Zone (detail), 1991
PL . 46
Arcadia, 1992
PL . 47
War and Architecture, 1991/1994
PL . 48
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 49
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 50
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 51
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 52
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 53
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 54
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 55
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
PL . 56
Fault House, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 57
Quake City, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 58
Quake City, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 59
Shard House, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 60
Shard House 2, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 61
Slip House, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 62
Slip House 2, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 63
Wave House, from San Francisco: Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
PL . 64
Sketchbook, 1995–98
PL . 65
Block House, 1996
PL . 66
Wheel House, 1996
PL . 67
Star House, 1996
PL . 68
Sketchbook, 1997
PL . 69
Sketchbook, 1998–99
PL . 70
Sketchbook, 1999
PL . 71
Terrain, 1999
PL . 72
Terrain, 1999
PL . 73
Terrain, 1999
PL . 74
Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999
PL . 75
Sketch from Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999
PL . 76
Sketch from Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999
PL . 77
Sketch from Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999
PL . 78
Sketch from Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999
PL . 79
Sketchbook, 1999–2000
PL . 80
Sketchbook, 2000
PL . 81
Sketchbook, 2000
PL . 82
Sketchbook, 2001
PL . 83
Sketchbook, 2001–2
PL . 84
Sketchbook, 2002
PL . 85
Conflict Space, 2006
PL . 86
Light Pavilion, 2011
LIST OF WORKS
PL . 7
Aeon, 1981 PL . 1
Graphite on board
Einstein Tomb, 1980
19 3/4 x 12 inches
Steel
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
21 1/4 x 27 1/2 x 9 inches Built in collaboration with Jay Mark Johnson
PL . 8
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Sector 1576N, Quad 2NR, from A-City, 1987 Colored pencil and graphite on board
PL . 2
40 x 36 inches
Einstein Tomb, 1980
Courtesy Friedman Benda LLC
Graphite and ink on board 21 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches
PL . 9
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Sector 1576N, from A-City, 1986 Ink on tracing paper mounted on board
PL . 3
36 x 36 inches
Einstein Tomb, 1980
Courtesy Friedman Benda LLC
Graphite and ink on board 21 3/8 x 14 1/2 inches
PL . 10
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Centricity, 1986–87 Graphite on paper
PL . 4
24 x 23 inches
Einstein Tomb, 1980
Courtesy Friedman Benda LLC
Graphite and ink on board 21 x 14 1/2 inches
PL . 11
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Archimatical Invention 1, from Centricity, 1986–87
PL . 5
Graphite on board
Einstein Tomb, 1980
26 x 24 inches
Graphite and ink on board
Courtesy Friedman Benda LLC
21 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 12
Centricity, 1987 PL . 6
Graphite on paper
Aeon, 1981
24 x 22 inches
Graphite on board
Collection of Craig Hartman and Jan O’Brien
19 3/4 x 12 inches Estate of Lebbeus Woods
120
PL . 13
PL . 17
Centricity, 1987
Photon Kite, from Centricity, 1988
Colored pencil, ink, and sepia wash on paper
Graphite on paper
24 x 23 inches
24 x 22 inches
Courtesy Friedman Benda LLC
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase through a gift of the Members of
PL . 14
the Architecture + Design Forum, SFMOMA
Concentric Field, from Centricity, 1987
Architecture and Design Accessions
Graphite on paper
Committee, and the architecture and design
23 x 24 inches
community in honor of Aaron Betsky, Curator
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects,
purchase through a gift of the Members of
1995–2001
the Architecture + Design Forum, SFMOMA Architecture and Design Accessions
PL . 18
Committee, and the architecture and design
DMZ, from Terra Nova, 1988
community in honor of Aaron Betsky, Curator
Ink and colored pencil on paper
of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects,
14 x 20 ½ inches
1995–2001
Collection of Blythe and Thom Mayne
PL . 15
PL . 19
D-QUAD. OAN: Biomechanical and Biodynamic
DMZ, from Terra Nova, 1988
Towers, from Centricity, 1987
Ink and colored pencil on paper
Graphite on paper
14 x 20 ½ inches
24 x 23 inches
Collection of Blythe and Thom Mayne
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase
PL . 20
Underground Berlin, 1988 PL . 16
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
Neomechanical Tower, Upper Chamber, from
16 x 11 1/2 inches
Centricity, 1987
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
Graphite and colored pencil on paper
Los Angeles
26 x 25 inches Collection of Jo Berkus and
PL . 21
the Estate of Barry Berkus
Underground Berlin, 1988 Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper 16 x 11 1/2 inches Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture, Los Angeles
121
PL . 22
PL . 27
Underground Berlin, 1988
Underground Berlin, 1988
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
16 x 11 1/2 inches
16 x 11 1/2 inches
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
PL . 23
PL . 28
Underground Berlin, 1988
Underground Berlin, 1988
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
Pastel, graphite, colored pencil, and electrostatic
16 x 11 1/2 inches
prints
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
12 x 8 1/2 inches
Los Angeles
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture, Los Angeles
PL . 24
Underground Berlin, 1988
PL . 29
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
Aerial Paris, 1989
12 1/2 x 20 1/4 inches
Colored pencil on board
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
22 1/4 x 14 1/2 inches
Los Angeles
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 25
PL . 30
Underground Berlin, 1988
Aerial Paris, 1989
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
Colored pencil on board
16 x 11 1/2 inches
22 1/4 x 14 1/2 inches
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Los Angeles PL . 31 PL . 26
Aerial Paris, 1989
Underground Berlin, 1988
Graphite and colored pencil on paper
Pastel, graphite, and colored pencil on paper
25 1/2 x 16 inches
16 x 23 inches
Collection of Jo Berkus and
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
the Estate of Barry Berkus
Los Angeles
122
PL . 32
PL . 37
Aerial Paris, 1989
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
Graphite and colored pencil on paper
Electrostatic prints, colored pencil, pastel,
24 x 16 inches
and ink on paper
Collection of Jo Berkus and
13 7/16 x 23 13/16 inches
the Estate of Barry Berkus
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
PL . 33
PL . 38
Aerial Paris, 1989
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
Graphite and colored pencil on paper
Electrostatic prints, colored pencil, pastel,
24 x 16 inches
and ink on paper
Collection of Jo Berkus and
13 7/16 x 19 3/4 inches
the Estate of Barry Berkus
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
PL . 34
PL . 39
Aerial Paris, 1989
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
Graphite and colored pencil on paper
Electrostatic prints, colored pencil, pastel,
24 x 16 inches
and ink on paper
Collection of Jo Berkus and
13 7/16 x 20 1/4 inches
the Estate of Barry Berkus
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
PL . 35 AND COVER
PL . 40
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
Electrostatic prints, colored pencil, pastel,
Painted polystyrene, steel, and Homasote
and ink on paper
30 x 42 x 22 inches
13 7/16 x 37 5/16 inches
Built in collaboration with
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Christopher Otterbine Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 36
Berlin Free Zone, 1990
PL . 41
Electrostatic prints, colored pencil, pastel,
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
and ink on paper
Graphite on paper
13 7/16 x 20 1/16 inches
16 x 11 1/2 inches
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
123
PL . 42
PL . 48
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
Colored pencil and electrostatic prints on paper
Ink and pencil on board
17 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches
16 1/4 x 13 3/4 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 43
PL . 49
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
Colored pencil and electrostatic prints on paper
Graphite and colored pencil on board
17 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches
12 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 44
PL . 50
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
Colored pencil and electrostatic prints on paper
Graphite and colored pencil on board
17 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches
8 3/8 x 17 1/4 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 45
PL . 51
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Colored pencil and electrostatic prints on paper
Graphite and colored pencil on board
17 3/4 x 12 1/2 inches
12 x 19 7/8 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 46
PL . 52
Arcadia, 1992
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Graphite and colored pencil on paper
Graphite and colored pencil on board
14 x 20 ½ inches
14 x 18 1/4 inches
Collection of Blythe and Thom Mayne
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
PL . 47
PL . 53
War and Architecture, 1991/1994
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Graphite, colored pencil, and electrostatic
Graphite and colored pencil on board
print on board
8 1/2 x 18 5/8 inches
12 x 20 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
124
PL . 54
PL . 59
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Shard House, from San Francisco:
Graphite on board
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
7 3/4 x 22 1/2 inches
Graphite and pastel on paper and wood
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
15 x 20 x 3/4 inches San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
PL . 55
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993 Graphite and colored pencil on board
PL . 60
12 1/2 x 12 7/8 inches
Shard House 2, from San Francisco:
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995 Graphite and pastel on paper and wood
PL . 56
14 1/2 x 23 x 3/4 inches
Fault House, from San Francisco:
Collection of John Sanger
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995 Graphite and pastel on paper and wood
PL . 61
14 1/2 x 23 x 3/4 inches
Slip House, from San Francisco:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Graphite and pastel on paper and wood 14 1/2 x 23 x 3/4 inches
PL . 57
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Quake City, from San Francisco:
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995 Graphite and pastel on paper and wood
PL . 62
15 x 20 x 3/4 inches
Slip House 2, from San Francisco:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Graphite, pastel, and piano wire on paper and wood
PL . 58
14 1/2 x 23 x 3/4 inches
Quake City, from San Francisco:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Graphite and pastel on paper and wood 14 ½ x 23 x 3/4 inches San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase
125
PL . 63
PL . 68
Wave House, from San Francisco:
Sketchbook, 1997
Inhabiting the Quake, 1995
Sewn linen book with pen on paper
Graphite, pastel, and piano wire on paper
4 x 6 inches
14 1/2 x 23 x 3/4 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, purchase through a gift of Cathy and Ned
PL . 69
Topham and the Accessions Committee Fund
Sketchbook, 1998–99 Sewn linen book with felt-tip pen on paper
PL . 64
4 1/4 x 6 1/4 x 3/4 inches
Sketchbook, 1995–98
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Edgar
Sewn linen book with ink on paper
Smith Purchase Fund, 2003
11 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
PL . 70
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Sketchbook, 1999 Sewn linen book with felt-tip pen on paper
PL . 65
4 1/4 x 6 1/4 x 3/4 inches
Block House, 1996
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Edgar
Polystyrene
Smith Purchase Fund, 2003
12 x 10 x 5 inches Built in collaboration with Paul Anvar
PL . 71
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Terrain, 1999 Polystyrene
PL . 66
16 x 23 3/4 x 4 1/4 inches
Wheel House, 1996
Built in collaboration with Dwayne Oyler
Polystyrene
The Museum of Modern Art, New York;
13 x 13 x 2 inches
Rob Beyer and Andrew Cogan Purchase Funds,
Built in collaboration with Paul Anvar
2003
Estate of Lebbeus Woods PL . 72 PL . 67
Terrain, 1999
Star House, 1996
Polystyrene
Painted polystyrene
16 x 24 x 4 1/4 inches
11 x 18 x 17 inches
Built in collaboration with Dwayne Oyler
Built in collaboration with Paul Anvar
The Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Collection of Jo Berkus and
David Childs and Jeffrey P. Klein Purchase
the Estate of Barry Berkus
Funds, 2003
126
PL . 73
PL . 81
Terrain, 1999
Sketchbook, 2000
Polystyrene
Sewn linen book with pen on paper
16 x 4 5/8 x 4 1/4 inches
4 x 6 inches
Built in collaboration with Dwayne Oyler
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
The Museum of Modern Art, New York; David Childs Purchase Fund, 2003
PL . 82
Sketchbook, 2001 PL . 74
Sewn linen book with pen on paper
Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999
4 x 6 inches
Polystyrene
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Dimensions variable Built in collaboration with Dwayne Oyler
PL . 83
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Sketchbook, 2001–2
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
Sewn linen book with pen on paper 5 x 7 x 3/4 inches
PLS . 75-78
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Sketches from Nine Reconstructed Boxes, 1999 Ink on paper
PL . 84
8 1/2 x 11 inches each
Sketchbook, 2002
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
Sewn linen book with felt-tip pen on paper
Accessions Committee Fund purchase
4 1/4 x 6 1/4 x 3/4 inches The Museum of Modern Art, New York;
PL . 79
David Childs Purchase Fund, 2003
Sketchbook, 1999–2000 Sewn linen book with felt-tip pen on paper
PL . 85
4 1/4 x 6 1/4 x 3/4 inches
Conflict Space, 2006
The Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Crayon and acrylic on linen
Edgar Smith Purchase Fund, 2003
85 1/2 x 108 3/4 inches San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
PL . 80
purchase through a gift of anonymous donors
Sketchbook, 2000
and the Accessions Committee Fund
Sewn linen book with felt-tip pen on paper 4 1/4 x 6 1/4 x 3/4 inches The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Edgar Smith Purchase Fund, 2003
127
PL . 86
War and Architecture, 1991/1994
Light Pavilion, 2011
Graphite, colored pencil, and
Wood, plastic, and metal
electrostatic print on board
17 1/4 x 19 3/4 x 13 1/2 inches
12 x 20 inches
Designed in collaboration with
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Christoph a. Kumpusch Built in collaboration with
War and Architecture, 1991/1994
Christoph a. Kumpusch, Indiana Morales
Graphite, colored pencil, and
and Carlos Rodriguez
electrostatic print on board
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
12 x 20 inches Estate of Lebbeus Woods
All images Š Estate of Lebbeus Woods
War and Architecture, 1991/1994 Graphite, colored pencil, and
E XHIBITION WORKS NOT PICTURED
electrostatic print on board 12 x 20 inches
Underground Berlin, 1988
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Pastel, graphite, colored pencil, and electrostatic prints
High Houses, from War and Architecture, 1993
12 x 8 1/2 inches
Graphite and colored pencil on board
Courtesy Edward Cella Art and Architecture,
11 1/2 x 10 5/8 inches
Los Angeles
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Sketches from New City, c. 1989
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Ink, graphite, and electrostatic prints
Graphite and colored pencil on board
13 1/2 x 6 inches
9 3/8 x 20 3/8 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Zagreb Free Zone, 1991
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Graphite on paper
Graphite on paper mounted on board
15 1/2 x 12 3/4 inches
10 1/4 x 8 7/8 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
War and Architecture, 1991/1994
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Graphite, colored pencil, and
Graphite and colored pencil on board
electrostatic print on board
8 1/2 x 14 7/8 inches
12 x 20 1/2 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
128
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Sarajevo House, 1993
Graphite on board
Painted polystyrene and Homasote
11 1/2 x 12 inches
12 x 29 x 5 inches
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Built in collaboration with Christopher Otterbine
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Graphite and colored pencil on board 10 1/8 x 10 inches
Sketches, c. 2005
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Ink on paper 11 x 8 1/2 inches
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Graphite on paper on board 10 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches
Earthwave, 2009
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Wood 28 1/2 x 26 1/2 x 16 inches
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993
Designed in collaboration with
Graphite and colored pencil on board
Christoph a. Kumpusch
11 1/2 x 11 1/4 inches
Built in collaboration with
Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Christoph a. Kumpusch and Adam Orlinski Estate of Lebbeus Woods
Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993 Graphite and colored pencil on board 16 3/4 x 12 inches Estate of Lebbeus Woods Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993 Graphite and colored pencil on board 8 7/8 x 14 inches Estate of Lebbeus Woods Sarajevo, from War and Architecture, 1993 Graphite and colored pencil on board 10 x 16 inches Estate of Lebbeus Woods
129
CONTRIBUTORS
Joseph Becker is Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher is Helen Hilton Raiser Associate Curator and head of department of Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Co-Chairs
Lebbeus Woods, Architect is organized by the San
Frances Beatty Adler
Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Eric Rudin Jane Dresner Sadaka
The exhibition at The Drawing Center is made possible by the generous support of Elise Jaffe +
Treasurer
Jeffrey Brown, Steven Holl + 32BNY, Edward
Stacey Goergen
Cella Art + Architecture, Friedman Benda, and StĂŠphane Samuel and Robert Melvin Rubin.
Secretary
Additional support is provided by the National
Dita Amory
Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of
Brad Cloepfil
Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State
Anita F. Contini
Legislature.
Steven Holl Rhiannon Kubicka David Lang Merrill Mahan Iris Z. Marden Nancy Poses Pat Steir Barbara Toll Isabel Stainow Wilcox Candace Worth Emeritus Melva Bucksbaum Frances Dittmer Bruce W. Ferguson Michael Lynne George Negroponte Elizabeth Rohatyn Jeanne C. Thayer Executive Director Brett Littman
Special thanks to the Estate of Lebbeus Woods.
E D WA R D H A L L A M T U C K P U B L I C AT I O N P R O G R A M
This is number 114 of the Drawing Papers, a series of publications documenting The Drawing Center’s exhibitions and public programs and providing a forum for the study of drawing. Margaret Sundell Executive Editor Joanna Berman Ahlberg Managing Editor Designed by Peter J. Ahlberg / AHL&CO This book is set in Adobe Garamond Pro and Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk. It was printed by BookMobile in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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T H E D R AW I N G PA P E R S S E R I E S A L S O I N C L U D E S
Drawing Papers 112 Rashaad Newsome: FIVE (The Drawing Center) Drawing Papers 111 Deborah Grant: Christ You Know it Ain’t Easy!! Drawing Papers 110 Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity Drawing Papers 109 Dickinson/Walser: Pencil Sketches Drawing Papers 108 Drawing Time, Reading Time Drawing Papers 107 Alexis Rockman: Drawings from Life of Pi Drawing Papers 106 Susan Hefuna and Luca Veggetti: NOTATIONOTATIONS Drawing Papers 105 Ken Price: Slow and Steady Wins the Race, Works on Paper 1962–2010 Drawing Papers 104 Giosetta Fioroni: L’Argento Drawing Papers 103 Igancio Uriarte: Line of Work Drawing Papers 102 Alexandre Singh: The Pledge Drawing Papers 101 José Antonio Suárez Londoño: The Yearbooks Drawing Papers 100 Guillermo Kuitca: Diarios Drawing Papers 99 Sean Scully: Change and Horizontals Drawing Papers 98 Drawing and its Double: Selections from the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica Drawing Papers 97 Dr. Lakra Drawing Papers 96 Drawn from Photography Drawing Papers 95 Day Job Drawing Papers 94 Paul Rudolph: Lower Manhattan Expressway Drawing Papers 93 Claudia Wieser: Poems of the Right Angle Drawing Papers 92 Gerhard Richter: “Lines which do not exist” Drawing Papers 91 Dorothea Tanning: Early Designs for the Stage Drawing Papers 90 Leon Golub: Live & Die Like a Lion? Drawing Papers 89 Selections Spring 2010: Sea Marks Drawing Papers 88 Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary Drawing Papers 87 Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World Drawing Papers 86 Unica Zurn: Dark Spring Drawing Papers 85 Sun Xun: Shock of Time Drawing Papers 84 Selections Spring 2009: Apparently Invisible Drawing Papers 83 M/M: Just Like an Ant Walking on the Edge of the Visible Drawing Papers 82 Matt Mullican: A Drawing Translates the Way of Thinking Drawing Papers 81 Greta Magnusson Grossman: Furniture and Lighting Drawing Papers 80 Kathleen Henderson: What if I Could Draw a Bird that Could Change the World? Drawing Papers 79 Rirkrit Tiravanija: Demonstration Drawings
T O O R D E R , A N D F O R A C O M P L E T E C ATA L O G O F PA S T E D I T I O N S , V I S I T D R AW I N G C E N T E R . O R G
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Essays by Joseph Becker and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher
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