Schlepping with Stanley

 

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Chicago's architectural agent-provocateur Stanley Tigerman doesn't seem to think much of that whole "going gently" crap. 

His firm, Tigerman McCurry Architects, is designing a new space for the relocating Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Hyde Park.   He's got not one, but two books coming out this fall, Schlepping Through Ambivalence: Essays on an American Architectural Condition, drawing on Tigerman's writings from 1964 to - now -, and, Designing Bridges to Burn:Architectural Memoirs.  On Friday, September 9th, he'll be the inaugural lecturer for the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust/U of C series, Thinking Into the Future: The Robie House Series on Architecture, Design and Ideas, tickets and info here.  He may be an octogenarian, but to Stanley Tigerman, a schlep would appear to be a full-press sprint.

But wait, there's more! If you happen to be in the neighborhood - New Haven, that is - this Thursday, August 25th, you can stop by the iconic 1963 Yale Art and Architecture building, rededicated and renamed in 2008 to honor its architect as Paul Rudolph Hall, to hear Tigerman deliver still another lecture, DIS P L A C E  M  E  N  T, marking the opening of a retrospective on his work, Ceci n’est pas une rêverie*: The Architecture of Stanley Tigerman, which runs through November 5th.   (It's coming to the Graham in January next year.)  According to the press release . . .

Ceci n’est pas une rêverie is installed thematically, grouping Tigerman’s projects according to motifs that resonate throughout his body of work: “utopia,” “allegory,” “death,” “humor,” “division,” “drift,” “yaleiana,” “identity,” and “(dis)order.” Highlights include models and sketches of such early and mid-career projects as the Five Polytechnic Institutes in Bangladesh (1966–75); the Urban Matrix proposal on Lake Michigan (1967–68); the Daisy House, in Porter, Indiana (1975–78); and Dante’s Bathroom Addition, an  unbuilt, allegorical project for Kohler (1980), while more recent projects include the Commonwealth Edison Energy Museum, in Zion, Illinois (1987–90);the Park Lane Hotel in Kyoto (1990); the Berlin Wall project (1988); and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois, in Skokie (2000–2009).

 . . .  [The exhibition also ] includes tableware designed for Swid Powell, along with designs for Cannon Fieldcrest, Alessi, and Cleto Munari. Original artworks by the architect include oil paintings from the “I Pledge Allegiance” series of the mid-1960s; a selection of “Architoons,” Tigerman’s cartoon-like drawings; and travel sketches from the 1970s onwards.

Also included is material dating from Tigerman's student days at Yale.  Next year, Tigerman's drawing archive goes into Yale's Manuscripts and Archives depository.

It is expected that across these many events, feathers will be ruffled, and insights gained. A report that Mr. Tigerman will also be a contestant in the fall 2011 season of Dancing With the Stars remains unconfirmed.