We’ve just started a great new onsite series here: curator “One on One” talks. Each Thursday evening at 6:30pm, one of our curators shares their perspective on a single work on view. Talks last about twenty minutes and take place in the galleries: a really great opportunity for conversation with some of the marvelous people on staff here. From Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, Assistant Curator, Architecture and Design:

Simon Ungers, Silent Architecture (Library rendering), 2003-2004. Inkjet print on paper mounted on Fortex

I hope you will join me this Thursday night, March 12, in a discussion about an exciting new accession into the Architecture and Design collection, Silent Architecture (2003-2004), by the German architect Simon Ungers. This complex project is a study of four types of civic structure — Library, Theater, Museum and Cathedral — buildings that often employ grandiose architectural gestures in order to become recognizable symbols of the city in which they reside. Comprised of four untreated steel models that recall Minimalist sculpture, austere plans and monumental renderings, Silent Architecture is ideal for opening up several issues within design. I’d like to take this One on One opportunity to address a few ideas, perhaps iconographic architecture, typological analysis, the influence of artistic genres within architecture, or how to display architecture in a museum. Depending on time and interest level, we could unpack one of these topics in depth, or touch upon all them.

Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher
Assistant Curator, Architecture and Design, SFMOMA