Place Makers: Contemporary Queensland Architects

2 August – 23 November 2008 Gallery 3.5 & 3.6, GoMA The Queensland Art Gallery Rex Addison / Andresen O’Gorman / Arkhefield / Bark / Bligh Voller Nield / Bud Brannigan Architects / Lindsay & Kerry Clare (Architectus) / Cox Rayner / Donovan Hill / Elizabeth Watson Brown Architects / Ian Moore Architects / James Russell / JMA Architects QLD / m3architecture / Owen & Vokes / Phorm Architecture + Design / Gabriel Poole / Richard Kirk / Riddel Architecture / Steendÿk / Jennifer Taylor & james Connor / Wilson Architects ‘Place Makers: Contemporary Queensland Architects’ presents the work of 22 Queensland architects in a major new exhibition. Exploring diverse design responses to climate, changing lifestyle patterns and population growth, ‘Place Makers’ will be the largest exhibition of contemporary architecture ever staged in an Australian art museum. The exhibition will showcase significant residential, public and institutional projects built during the past 15 years, documenting the work of Queensland-based architectural practices which span several generations. The work will be presented in an immersive and engaging exhibition environment that will include large-scale models, specially commissioned films and photography, hand drawn architectural plans and concept sketches, and CAD animations. Exhibition ‘Place Makers’ presents architectural projects that successfully address key aspects of subtropical living, as well as urban renewal and density, and the timeless concerns for basic human needs and wellbeing. The exhibition reveals the extraordinary diversity of residential work being produced in Queensland, and includes internationally recognised commissions for individual houses, modest suburban ‘infill’ designs, an isolated dwelling in regional Queensland, innovative new public housing, and an exemplary coastal high-rise. ‘Place Makers’ also presents recent award-winning public buildings, highlighting their capacity to create important social spaces within urban centres. Links between residential ‘research’ and its expression in successful large-scale public and institutional buildings are clearly articulated. The exhibition also provides a fascinating insight into the historical influences on today’s architecture, including responses to the ‘timber and tin’ tradition of the ‘Queenslander’, key explorations and adaptations of Modernism, and influential efforts to develop an architecture responsive to place and the subtropics. ‘Place Makers’ contextualises some of the state’s most exciting recent architecture, and profiles the capabilities and inventiveness of Queensland architects today. Publication ‘Place Makers: Contemporary Queensland Architects’ will be accompanied by a major publication, richly illustrated in full colour. It will profile the 22 featured architects, as well as over 50 of their individual projects. A series of lead essays also provides an introduction to the history, key figures and current directions of Queensland architecture. Contributors include leading Australian architect and academic Brit Andresen (Andresen O’Gorman); Haig Beck and Jackie Cooper, editors of UME architecture magazine; Rosemary Kennedy, Director of the Centre for Subtropical Design, Brisbane; and Andrew Wilson, lecturer in architecture at the University of Queensland. Order your copy online at www.australianartbooks.com.au Public Programs Opening Weekend Talks ‘Ideas Behind The Architecture’ Celebrate the opening of ‘Places Makers’ and hear from architects in the exhibition at this weekend of talks and discussions. Saturday 2 August: Floortalks From 11am Throughout the day, architects will present short floortalks offering insights their projects featured in ‘Place Makers’. Sunday 3 August: Panel discussions 12pm and 1pm Architects will engage in a panel style discussion about their work in the show, and on the ideas and themes behind the exhibition. Visiting scholar lecture - Architecture after the aftermath: Dweling, rethinking 2.00pm Friday 8 August Terry Smith is the Andrew W Mellon Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory at the University of Pittsburgh. This lecture will take up and further develop ideas presented in Smith’s 2006 publication The architecture of aftermath’ (University of Chicago Press, which explores how global politics and clashing cultures following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York have changed the way we experience late modern architecture. The lecture is presented in conjunction with the University of Queensland, where Terry Smith is the 2008 recipient of the Daphne Mayo Visiting Professorship in Visual Culture. Free. Bookings required. Email [email protected] to book. Curator’s tour 11.00am Saturday 9 August Miranda Wallace, Senior Managerial Researcher and exhibition curator, leads visitors on a guided tour of the ‘Place Makers’ exhibition, highlighting particular projects featured in the exhibition. Please meet at the GoMA information desk. Film Program Coinciding with ‘Place Makers’, the Australian Cinémathèque at the Gallery of Modern Art will present award-winning documentaries on the work of major twentieth- and twenty-first-century architects, including Carlo Scarpa, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, Alvaro Siza, Le Corbusier, Frank Gehry, Oscar Niemeyer, OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Charles and Ray Eames and Louis Kahn.