On Thursday, January 23rd, from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm Helms Bakery District and the Cal Poly LA Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design are excited to host a reception, presentation, discussion, and book launch with Matthew Butcher, Andrew Kovacs, Mimi Zeiger, and Jimenez Lai. 

Copies of Re-imagining the Avant-Garde will be available for sale at the event courtesy of Arcana: Books on the Arts.

Matthew Butcher

Matthew Butcher is a designer based in London. His work has been exhibited at the V&A Museum, London; Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York; The Architecture Foundation, London; Betts Project, London and the Prague Quadrennial, Prague. Recent projects and exhibitions include ‘Flood House’ a floating architecture developed in collaboration with Jes Fernie and Focal Point Gallery in Southend and The Mansio, a retreat for writers and poets that travelled sites across Hadrian’s Wall which was nominated for the 2017 Architects Journal Small Projects Prize. Matthew is also the editor and founder of the architectural newspaper P.E.A.R.: Paper for Emerging Architectural Research and Associate Professor in Architecture at The Bartlett School of Architecture, London and Visiting Professor at Genoa University, Italy. He has recently contributed Articles And Papers For Journals Including Conditions, Architecture Research Quarterly (ARQ), The Riba Journal and Architecture Today. He has also recently edited a special issue of Architectural Design (AD) titled Re-imagining the Avant-Garde: Revisiting the Architecture of the 1960s and 1970s.

Andrew Kovacs

Andrew Kovacs is a Los Angeles based architectural designer and educator. Kovacs’ work on architecture and urbanism has been published widely including A+U, Pidgin, Project, Pool, Perspecta, Manifest, Metropolis, Clog, Domus, and The Real Review. Additionally, Kovacs is the creator and curator of Archive of Affinities, a widely viewed website devoted to the collection and display of architectural b-sides. In 2015 Kovacs published the book Architectural Affinities as part of the Treatise series organized and sponsored by the Graham Foundation in Chicago. Kovacs’ design studio, Office Kovacs, works on projects at all scales from books, exhibitions, temporary installations, interiors, homes, speculative architectural proposals and public architecture competitions. The recent design work of Office Kovacs includes a proposal for a network of parks in downtown Los Angeles alleys, a large scale installation entitled Colossal Cacit at the Coachella Valley Arts and Music Festival and an experimental camping pavilion in the Morongo Valley Desert.

Jimenez Lai

Jimenez Lai works in the world of art, architecture, culture, and education. Early in his career, Jimenez Lai lived and worked in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier Van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Before founding Bureau Spectacular, Lai worked for various international offices, including MOS and OMA. Lai is widely exhibited and published around the world, including the MoMA-collected White Elephant. His first book, Citizens of No Place, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Draft II of this book has been archived at the New Museum as a part of the show Younger Than Jesus. Lai has won various awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale, and the 2017 Designer of the Future Award at Art Basel / Design Miami. In 2014, Lai represented Taiwan at the 14th Venice Architectural Biennale. In 2015, Lai organized the Treatise exhibition and publication series at the Graham Foundation. Alongside MoMA, Lai’s work has been collected by SFMOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, and LACMA.

Mimi Zeiger

Mimi Zeiger is a Los Angeles-based critic, editor, and curator. She was co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and curator of Soft Schindler at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. She has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Review, Metropolis, and Architect and is an opinion columnist for Dezeen. Zeiger is the 2015 recipient of the Bradford Williams Medal for excellence in writing about landscape architecture. Zeiger is author of New Museums, Tiny Houses, Micro Green: Tiny Houses in Nature, and Tiny Houses in the City. In 1997, Zeiger founded loud paper, an influential zine and digital publication dedicated to increasing the volume of architectural discourse. She has curated, contributed to, and collaborated on projects that have been shown at the Art Institute Chicago, Venice Architecture Biennale, the New Museum, Storefront for Art and Architecture, pinkcomma gallery, and the AA School. She co-curated Now, There: Scenes from the Post-Geographic City, which received the Bronze Dragon award at the 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, Shenzhen. Zeiger has taught at the School of Visual Art, Art Center, Parsons New School of Design, California College of the Arts (CCA), SCI-Arc, Sandberg Institute, and the GSD, and is former co-president of the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from SCI-Arc and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Cornell University.

Introduced and moderated by Stephen Phillips, AIA, PhD, Principal of Stephen Phillips Architects (SPARCHS) and professor, director, Cal Poly LA Metro Program in Architecture and Urban Design (California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo)

Free Parking is available at the corner of Helms Ave. and Venice Blvd.

Photos (Left to Right): Book Cover of Reimagining the Avant-Garde (Architectural Design (AD) Wiley, 2019), Image of Matthew Butcher; Image of Andrew Kovacs; Image of Jimenz Lai; Image of Mimi Zeiger.