Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Going to John Johansen Lecture at PAAM tonight
The Restless Creative Spirit: the Life and Work of John M. Johansen
Tuesday, July 27, 7pm
In conjunction with the exhibition Gathering: Art about Architects at PAAM (June 25-August 29, 2010)
John M. Johansen was born in New York City in 1916, studied architecture at Harvard University under Walter Gropius, and went on to become one of the preeminent American architects of the modern era. Now retired from practice and a resident of Wellfleet, MA, he has devoted himself to the development of a visionary architecture based on scientific discovery. His far-reaching creative practice includes painting, printmaking, sculpture, jewelry design, and songwriting. He has also written a number of books, includingJohn M. Johansen: A Life on the Continuum of Modern Architecture and Nanoarchitecture: A New Species of Architecture.
In his lecture, Johansen will discuss the major buildings of his Modern Movement period, and present his experimental concepts in illustrating advancing building technologies. Johansen will also show video of his animated buildings – structures that will actually grow in the next century. Signed copies of his DVD will be available for purchase.
http://archiseek.com/2010/1964-united-states-embassy-northumberland-road-dublin/
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On July 27, 2010 I attended a lecture at the Provincetown Art Association Museum titled, The Restless Creative Spirit: the Life and Work of John M. Johansen. I had planned to attend the lecture since I had booked my vacation in the Provincetown areas during the scheduled talk.
ReplyDeleteThe lecture was a combination of Storytelling of work in the past that was very impressive and then the second half of the lecture was to cover the architect's vision of architecture for humans in the future.
The lecture room filled quickly with a diverse audience of older and younger people. There were older than young. Ati Gropius was greeting some of the group as they entered. She had mentioned to the group that the museum had not posted the paintings that John had requested and that the least favorites were in the gallery for view.
John was introduced by a working summer intern giving his biography and some background to why this was important to the Museum for living artists to share their past and their vision. Mr. Johansen at 94 years old spoke very firm and strong. He seemed to hold himself with complete confidence. The lights were dimmed and he spoke from a podium to a very intimate audience.
He began with some of his most famous structures on review, such as the US embassy in Ireland (http://dublin.usembassy.gov/index/embassy-news/about-the-embassy2.html). He was humble about how he had been chosen to do the job but was not fully confidant at first that he could please the US Gov. John mentioned that he was reassured by his peers that he was perfect for the job and he went to Washington DC accepted. He was please with this project. He described in detail and humbly some other of his work. To mention specifically he own house was his favorite, also Telephone Pole house, and Bridge House which was amazingly like the Falling Water but the style is different not a cantilever but an actually the structure that bridged a stream very naturally. Mr. Johansen is a good storyteller.
He spoke of how he was hired to design a home for this family and he asked them to purchase more land that they had originally and he created the design for the home across the large rocks instead on one side of them. I was pleased with his stories.
At the end of his history part, John changed gears to his talk. The talk became much of a future vision. John mentioned he was working with Nano Scientists in California. He kept his principles of architecture in place but began to explain that in the future, he said 3 generations from now, things would be much different. He showed his prototyped orb work. He mentioned ideas that are similar to the geodome ideas of Buckminster Fuller. He had a mock graphic of New York City under a clear dome. He shared ideas of a new style elevator.
His vision was very complex but the future is with science and technology and the architect's job will still be very important but very different working with the technologies that have not been fully developed yet.
Just found out today that Mr Johanson has passed away.
ReplyDeletehttp://johnmjohansen.com/Chronology.html