3 Books 9 Tchotchkes 3 Tables 2 Lumps
Location: New York, NY
Year: 2014
Status: Complete
The LADG designed an installation of old and new works mixed together in a living room for an exhibition of work by winners of the Architectural League of New York’s Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. Too young to have produced anything that deserves to be treated as a survey, the LADG challenged the chronology and the self-importance of a retrospective by mixing together newly designed objects with artifacts from old work. These objects were set within a living room to attach the old work with the incidental importance given to the clutter of domestic space.
Like any living room, the contents of the installation are designed to survey objects from the top down. On top, three coffee table books document projects that have been organized in clusters, "Installations and Speculative Work," and "Built Work."
Adjacent to the books are a series of tchotchkes that re-present episodes from the recent work in miniature. The books and tchotchkes rest on a collection of occasional tables. These tables in turn rest on a hilly landscape made of two lumps. Between the bottom surface of the lumps and the floor of the gallery is a primitive, upholstered interior.
The project declares in physical form the future ambitions of our practice: unfinished, open and extensible without being repetitive.
Project Lead: James Chesnut
Project Team: Dan Marty, Nick Safely, Tyler Smith