State of Grace: The 2016 series on architecture and collaboration continues

Paris Center has organized a series of encounters featuring prestigious speakers from the world of architecture, design and urban development

July 25, 2016

In partnership with Columbia alumnus and Australian architect Robert Grace (’84, MS in Architecture and Building Design), the Paris Center has organized a series of encounters, placing into dialogue prestigious speakers from the world of architecture, design and urban development

The series began with a conversation between Bernard Plattner from Renzo Piano, the chief architectural firm of Columbia University’s Manhattanville, and Philip Wilson from Spatiale Ingénieure.  Plattner and Wilson compared and contrasted the structural and administrative difficulties faced when conceiving and building projects in various locations around the world.  The second event took placed in Venice during the Biennale.  Kevin O’Brien spoke passionately about the place of aboriginal art in his work.  His comments were punctuated by a showing of Richard Bell’s film Broken English, an indictment of the white Australian male. 

The most recent event featured Sébastien Marot, a philosopher of art and architecture, who performed for the audience an intricate study of the question of landscape in Eric Rohmer’s films.  He ended his talk by signaling the contribution of his brother, Jean-Baptiste, who was in the crowd.  Jean-Baptiste Marot’s canvases portraying the streets of Paris serve as decor to Rohmer’s 2001 film L’Anglaise et le Duc. The next encounter takes place on September 20th, when Linna Choi and Tarik Oualalou from the eponymous Oualalou + Choi, an architectural firm based in Paris and Casablanca, will take the stage.