ARCHITECTURE: Diller & Scofidio + Renfro

Diller & Scofidio + Renfro is an interdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts in special events and exhibitions such as the exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris which is the reason of the tribute. The couple of the Swiss Architects Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio founded their architecture studio 1979 in N. York, Charles Renfro joined in 1997 and became partner in 2004.

By Efi Michalarou

Blur, a pavilion built of fog on Lake Neuchâtel and commissioned by the Swiss Expo.02, was completed in 2002 and was the project that made them most popular in international architectural community. From 1999-2004 the MacArthur Foundation honored the firm’s work with the ‘genius’ award, stating that they “have created an alternative form of architectural practice that unites design, performance, and electronic media with cultural and architectural theory and criticism. Their work explores how space functions in our culture and illustrates that architecture, when understood as the physical manifestation of social relationships, is everywhere, not just in buildings”. Projects in construction or in design include: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Expansion in New York City. The Broad, a major modern art museum in Los Angeles, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley, the new Columbia University Medical Center Education Building and Columbia Business School in New York City, the Museum of Image & Sound on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, the new Stanford University Art & Art History Building and Culture Shed and D Tower “The Corset” residential tower for Related Companies, both part of the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project in New York City. Diller Scofidio + Renfro recently won the international design competition for Zaryadye Park, a new 35-acre public space next to the Kremlin in Moscow. In 2003, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of the studio’s work, recognizing the firm’s unorthodox practice. From October they have an exhibition at Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will continue to commemorate its 30th anniversary with Musings on a Glass Box, a new installation created especially for the occasion by the internationally acclaimed interdisciplinary design studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The Fondation Cartier building designed by Jean Nouvel will be used as raw material for their work, a first in the history of the institution. Musings on a Glass Box The result is an immersive environment, including an integral acoustic component by American composer David Lang and sound designer Jody Elff, that works with the building’s architecture to raise questions about transparency, perception, and one’s relation to space.

Info:Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 261 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, Duration:25/10/14-22/2/15,Days&Hours: Tue-Sun:11:00-20:00, http://fondation.cartier.com/#/en/home