Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Studio/Gang in 65:41

On January 30th, Studio/Gang Architects' Jeanne Gang gave a lecture at the USC School of Architecture in Los Angeles, where MADA s.p.a.m.'s Qingyun Ma has just started his second year as Dean. Gang's lecture, which you can view here, provides a densely-packed yet concise overview of her firm's work and philosophies, from the Starlight Theater in Rockford, right through to the recently completed SOS Children's Village Community Center at 7600 South Parnell, and the new Solstice residential development in Hyde Park, from which the illustration you see here is taken.

The news is bad, however, if you're on a Mac. I wasn't been able to get sound in either Safari or Firefox, although I've been able to run other presentations that use Sonic Foundry's Mediasite just fine. Most of the time, all you get are ghostly images of Gang speaking at the front of a darkened auditorium. However, you can still flip through the 256 slides that accompany Gang's presentation.

On a PC, you not only hear what Gang has to say, but the slides synchronize perfectly, as her wide-ranging curiousity encompasses everything from the use of marble in tension, to the evolving oar lock designs of Venice gondoliers, to the use of slag and broken beer bottles in terrazzo flooring designed for the Ford Calumet Environmental Center, which she says the city now wants to use in the public schools. Grab a PC, and see it all here.

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