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Seattle Needs a Considerable Cultural Center

https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/chicago_culturalcenter.html

 

Seattle needs a Cultural Center like the one in Chicago. I have been saying this to anyone who will listen. Almost shouting it, really.

In the midwestern windy city, the Cultural Center is built in the old library that resides on Michigan Avenue in the heart of downtown. The building takes up half of a Chicago block with entrances on north and south. In a city known for its grand and historic architecture, the Cultural Center has multiple impressive Tiffany glass domes, lobbies lined with mosaics, and staircases that are somehow both intimate and grand. The building itself, set in a highly visited and visible location and with some historic significance as a designed structure, would be a draw in itself.

But, what is most impressive is what has been done to program the interior. With a momentum appropriate for a public library’s past, the Center is primed to display and encourage culture and discourse, is accessible from multiple directions, and is free and open to the public (with an information/security desk at each end). It houses ever-changing, and always compelling arrangements full of inhabitable inspiration. With a multitude of temporary exhibitions of various scales and attitudes, the spaces are always transforming, each seemingly organized within a particular cultural theme. Not only does the building have exhibits, but it also houses assembly places; a senior center; a concert/event area (with soaring ceilings, a glorious stained- glass dome, flexible seating, and a window that frames Gehry’s Millennium Park concert hall — i.e., Jay Pritzker Pavilion across the road); a large central lobby for sanctuary where anyone can rest among an array of changing art installments; a public lecture hall; etc. The rooms and hallways are varied and dynamic. It is a sensual treat to walk among them when they are empty, and it is exponentially uplifting when they are filled with art and displays.

It seems that almost any area of the building can be, and is used for exhibits. One exhibit area on the main floor is devoted to city planning. Two small galleries adjacent to this space sometimes expand the civic theme or show the work of individual, contemporary artists (usually activists with strong civic intentions and a high level of aesthetic ability). There is another changing exhibit space where there are often experimental interior and/or industrial designs as well as books and pamphlets for the taking. There might be a small exhibit about Chicago’s design history under the stairs. There is also a space lent to “Story Corps” (https://storycorps.org) where, with an appointment, people can open their hearts and minds to each other. There is a senior center near the north entrance that has its own exhibition space. The staircases are an experience unto themselves and, as you proceed along one you can view the interior courtyard where, for a time, there was a clever, contemporary, sculptural piece inspired by Piranesi.

Upstairs, galleries with tall ceilings and more expansive footprints have changing exhibits of the work of individual artists who are well-known or obscure, or of artist collectives, or exhibits on a theme. These larger galleries might, for a time, be filled with innovation from the city’s Architecture Biennial or about science and art.  I have seen shows that interpret and exhibit the work of internationally known artists such as the innovative and riveting walking wind-powered sculptures of Theo Jansen (https://www.strandbeest.com), or the provocative local and highly acclaimed contemporary Theaster Gates (https://www.theastergates.com), or a collection of lesser-known Chicago painters and sculptors from the recent past (at least one of whom I have since seen exhibited in major museums), or an exhibit on the visible history of immigrants in Chicago… A hallway in this old building has a new ramp and a permanent artistic structure of brushed metal that, I think, may also function as a structural reinforcing. Nearby, connecting the north and south, there is another hallway where photographs are on display, often about the history of the city. The exterior wall facing an alleyway is also a canvas for art.

A stimulating lecture series is part of the program. We visit Chicago often and we almost always make a pilgrimage to the Cultural Center. One day, we wandered in and there was a poster announcing a talk by Hannah Beecher. In the intimate lecture hall, Ms. Beecher sat for an interview and candidly talked to the forty or so of us who had arrived. Ms. Beecher was the Production Designer for the movie “Black Panther” and Beyonce’s video “Lemonade”, among other extraordinary artistic endeavors. I was feet away from the stage, riveted to my seat by her astonishing personal, generous, and inspirational tale of creativity and redemption. This year, I saw her work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where she collaborated on an installation about what Seneca Village — a thriving African American settlement that had been displaced to build the MET and Central Park – might have been in an imagined future. On that day in Chicago, one of the most compelling speakers I have ever heard, Ms. Beecher, welcomed us in and made anything seem possible.

while in Seattle potential stands by

So I am inspired by this. Seattle needs a Cultural Center like the one in Chicago. I am proposing that the Macy’s Building is poised to be that place. The location and the scale of the building are the ideal setting. En route from downtown to the popular Pike’s Market, this structure is of a rare Art Deco style in a town not necessarily known for architectural history. The building is central and accessible from multiple sides. It is near transit and shopping, restaurants, and waterfront views. It denotes solidity and openness. And our city needs a cultural anchor, both for tourists/visitors and for those of us who reside longer. We need a conduit to fill and describe the important art, architecture, design, and cultural stories we must share to keep ourselves vibrant and alive. I propose that we study the great potential of a centralized civic space that celebrates our rich, diverse, impressive culture and that we put this plan into action right away as the city core needs us to do. We are a city, at long last, and not a provincial afterthought. We can act like it. Proud and expressive. Showing our smarts. Large and impressive. Open to the public. We all need it. Now.

A plea for inclusion

June 29, 2020

 

 

Dear American Institute of Architects,

 

Two years ago, you honored me by awarding me a Fellowship for my work as an architect in the realm of Interpretive Design. Now, I am writing to convey an interpretation that I hope will lead to positive change for the better in the AIA.

The architectural profession is notoriously and traditionally misogynist. When I was at MIT, the architectural predecessors about whom I was taught were almost exclusively male. Charles Bulfinch comes to mind as an example. I remember learning that he was the first professional American architect, who studied at Harvard and then toured Europe, thanks to an inheritance and connections that gave him both entry to ancient and contemporary buildings, as well as the time to study them.

It was only with persistence and interest (something I shared with other female architecture students and a few professors) that I was able to uncover and study women in architecture. There was one memorable tour of houses near Boston where I met both Dolores Hayden and Sarah Harkness. But the gatherings of female architects at the time, while exhilarating, also felt subversive. Years later, I was able to revisit my reflections of women in architecture when I was invited to design a humble exhibit about the work of female architects for Pratt Institute and for which I developed an insurgent and controversial show. I hung the work on clothes lines among articles of clothing and kitchen utensils, and added provocative quotes about how female architects have barely made it out of the house. The show led to a heated panel discussion and a long-desired invitation to teach (which I ironically relinquished in order to move to California and start a family).

I am grateful, therefore, to the Institute for rewarding me with a Fellowship as I hope that I am representative of an opening of mind and action in this otherwise largely exclusive realm.

But the issue of misogyny and/or a re-envisioning of Bulfinch is for another time. This letter is not a call to integrate the field of architecture with more female architects, nor even necessarily to shake up the systemic isolation, inequities, or outright resistance to female participation in this worthy profession. This letter is to make a strong request in support of people of color (POC) who are so direly under-represented in the world of Architecture. The current culture is both embarrassing and cruel. Furthermore, it leaves the world bereft of the insights and perspectives of a diversity of thought and design. It leaves us all poorer.

What I am requesting is this.

  1. More and better access to architectural education for POC.
  2. Outreach to parents and students who are POC to spark an interest and to reveal opportunity in this field.
  3. A wide range of design classes (and class types) offered and made accessible to diverse and often under-privileged populations, starting in elementary school and continuing through high school.
  4. Scholarships to educational programs for POC.
  5. More and wider celebration, reward, and reference to designers who are POC.
  6. Offerings of accessible and affordable design advice to people and communities of color.
  7. A development of further opportunities to reach and to support POC in our field.
  8. Looking for more and continued acceptance and a welcoming and supporting of new voices in our field. This should include collaborations of all people.
  9. More “advertising”/publicity about architects and designers who are POC.
  10. A general push for people to better understand Design – wherever and whenever, since it so consistently affects their/our lives yet remains so seemingly exclusive and out of reach.

Let’s begin now. Let’s get in touch.

Best wishes,

Mindy

Mindy Lehrman Cameron, FAIA

 

 

Mindy Lehrman Cameron, FAIA
Lead Architect / Principal
LEHRMAN CAMERON STUDIO
www.lehrmancameron.com

Design on Display – 2013 talk at Peter Miller Books

Design on Display: Museum Workers, Designers and Professions Inbetween

Thursday, April 4th, 2013  @ Peter Miller Books

The Seattle Emerging Museum Professionals (SEMP) mixer and short panel discussion featuring professionals whose work and interests exist at the intersection of museum work, exhibit display and design. This event was coordinated in partnership with the Seattle Architecture Foundation (SAF.)

Questions to address:

  • How did you arrive in your particular field?  Where is your passion?
  • What is your interaction with the museum field?
  • Where do you think improvement could be made in museums, be it exhibition work, programing, marketing, etc?

Other:

  • What is your favorite museum and why?
  • In what ways should local communities influence exhibit design or be directly engaged in the design of exhibit or museum spaces in your ideal scenario?  

Draft of my talk:

Hello.

I haven’t spoken in public in a while and I am out of practice. And, so that you know, my two teenaged children are helping to redefine “private” with all of the social networks, and I guess I am with them. I will be as open and honest as I can be. Ask me anything.

First of all, please allow me to tell you something about myself, as you may wonder why I wound up on this panel and also, if you are like me, you generally don’t fully listen to someone, especially when they are giving you advice unless you consider the source (and maybe hardly at all if it is your mother).

I am an artist. I am also a registered architect. And, after twenty-five years running my own business, I am also a very experienced exhibition designer. For those of you who need to know the creds, I went to Boston U where I received a BFA and MIT where I earned a Masters in Architecture (where the ratio was 1:5, female:male when I started). I was weaned in a male-dominated work world where I have tried to be a pioneer. I lived in Japan in my late twenties and worked as a carpenter there. After working in SF for Skidmore Owings and Merrill, John Holey and Associates, and HGBH (where I was Head of Interiors), as well as John Stewart Polshek, and Ralph Applebaum & Associates in NYC, I started my design business. First, in New York, then San Francisco, and then in Seattle in 1995. My first child was born in in SF 1994 and she was three months old when we moved here. Unlike some people for whom having a child means less formal working and less working time, I kicked into gear and only started to make real money after she was born. I figured that I had to earn money for her too…and also working keeps me sane. Relatively.

I like having a small business and I have kept it small to be involved in everything we do. I have also intentionally, to this point, kept the business regional to be near my growing family. When I started, my entrepreneurial mother told me “any idiot can spend money”.  And so I began by working out of my house. I bought my first computer with my first check and the printer with the second check. I won an award for my first project, which was a garbage museum in Connecticut, and that was that. I was launched.

I have no excuses or regrets about having a boutique-sized design firm, although from the perspective of being impressive, this has not always worked in my favor. Until recently, it wasn’t sexy to work out of one’s house, especially as a woman. But I prefer the intimacy and I like to work hard.

Eventually, I moved to an office down the road from my house in Seattle (a 42 second commute), then two miles away, and now I am  back again. This has allowed me to be in my kid’s lives (now my two kids are teens) and yet keep a good separation of church and state.

Lehrman Cameron Studio has been busy these past twenty-five years. I love working. I have worked on projects large and small. I have worked with museums – art, culture, children’s, science, flight –and places that are pseudo museums – such as music centers and visitor centers — places where learning is touchable, playable, interactive (even when “interactive” was only an early gleam in the museum world’s eye). I have worked on subjects like hydroelectricity and waste water (in fact, water is a major theme in most of my project. Interwoven is the history of people and landscape, and many many themes, topics, and subthemes that others might have learned in school and that I have had the great luxury of studying in detail and depth while making money.

I think that we have been an unusual firm, doing great amounts of work with few people. We have never been larger than nine, and that only for a short while. Usually we have four to six people. But we do a lot: research, writing, graphic design, exhibit design, planning, interiors, and architecture. Recently, clients have asked us to include interpretive landscape design with environmental graphics. We get to rotate the mental crops and the nutrients in our fields are never depleted. Occasionally, I get to do public art too.

Over twenty-five years in business for myself, I have almost always hired women (I used to say that was because “I like to hire the best”) and I have given them what surprisingly turns out to be a great deal of independence in my office. However, after the first ten years, my husband came into the business with me. He was a museum administrator at the Brooklyn Children’s museum in NY, Liberty Science Center in NJ, and the Exploratorium in SF. His job at the Jimi Hendrix Museum (now EMP) is what brought us to Seattle. I had enough hubris to think that I could make it anywhere. And after three years here, he joined me at Lehrman Cameron Studio. Max was the catalyst for my getting into museum work in the first place, although I have a strong personal relationship with museums through family members and throughout my childhood. Also, I am the Lead Designer on all of our projects and the philosophical foundation of our firm and its work. People have been interested to know how we have successfully worked together for so long. I can tell you another time if you are interested.

I recently stepped back to reconsider my work as an exhibition designer and to begin the process of more fully investigating my life in Art (starting with drawing, painting, writing…) I just finished writing my mother’s biography. After twenty five years, I am personally aiming for more purity, more mess, more solo flying. But I have been lucky to have had, for so long, all of the hard work and challenging times that go into exhibition design.

I have been asked to address the question of where I think improvements can be made in museums.

So that you know, Lehrman Cameron Studio has worked on every type of museum and visitor center mentioned on the American Association of Museums’ Wikipedia site: art, culture, history, science, military, maritime, and youth museums, as well as aquaria, zoos, botanical gardens, arboreta, historic sites, and science and technology centers.

I personally think of museums as special and sometimes even sacred places and I am especially fond of art museums. And, although I usually do not tell our clients, I measure all museums by the standard of the old Museum of Modern Art in NY which, to my mind, was nearly perfect in scale, subject, curation, interpretation, context, programming, and architecture. There were many reasons I loved it. Mostly though, it was because the works of art were the primary experience and everything else played a perfect supporting role.

So how can museums improve? It seems to me that museums should consider what they offer that cannot be found anywhere else. The experience of an exhibit should be better than what you can find at home. It has to be more than a website, more than a tv show, digital program, or app. It has to be authentic. I like to ask clients “Is this an exhibit? Should it be something else; a book, a performance, a game?” The museum experience needs to have a unique, and specific quality, much of which comes from the building and the context itself: the architecture and the approach. And much of the impact of an exhibition comes from the anticipation, the PR, the marketing, and the related programming. But then, it all hinges on the presentation and interpretation of the collection, the objects; what is chosen to be on display, why, in what proximities and rhythms, as well as the text and illustrative explanations (which can be on graphic panels, via docents, on headsets…)  A museum experience is different than other types of experience because it is in a real place in real time with real objects, and a visitor had to travel to get there. It may be that within a museum, a visitor can have interactions with devices that may otherwise not be available to them, or have interpersonal exchanges that they wouldn’t have at home, or just have the incredibly special opportunity to see materials and things up close and personal in the right light at the right height, well explained.

I also think that there can often be something better about the museum’s relationship to outside designers. Lehrman Cameron Studio has worked for clients large and small, museums, private and public entities, and others …as planning only, planning and design, design-build, and many forms of contracts and relationships. I can tell you what it is like to work with and for a team for many years on one project and still keep a consistent, design vision as the work gets rolled over by budgets and habits. I can tell you how you can work with people you admire but don’t particularly like (that took me a long time to learn), or like but don’t admire (something I would like to avoid). I can describe the enthusiasm, optimism, and sincerity at the start of a project and how it gets retarded sometimes by the client’s knee-jerk, emotional, maybe even primal reaction to change and a clinging to familiarity. And I can tell you about what it takes to make a place of learning through objects and materials, the locations, dimensions, colors, textures, patterns, motion, rhythms, legibility, laws of gravity, laws of graphics, processes of architecture, and all of the nearly infinite decisions that go into designing these little places that you hope have moved someone to memorably change their lives for the better. Not just because they got out of a day of school. But because of the experience that you helped to develop. It is a complicated myriad of elements, processes, and relationships that go into great exhibition designs.

Museums have in-house experts and as design consultants we like to rely on their expertise, but sometimes in-house designers get turf-conscious when we are around. It is wonderful, and the work is better when we work with people who are smart and who understand aesthetics and the process. The only glitch has been when a museum staff person does not respect or trust us as outside professionals. And it pisses me off when a museum does not give us credit for our work. But it is the most delicious of circumstances when the people are brilliant in their field of expertise, when they respect us as brilliant in ours, and especially when they have a refined sense of humor. It should be a collaboration, not a clobberation. In any job, we may find ourselves acting as therapist. But I keep expecting museums to be peopled with individuals whose emotional intelligence is as advanced as their intellect, and that just isn’t always the case. Sometimes egos get in the way.

But, what would really be improved about museums goes beyond the museum walls.  If society fully appreciated, rewarded, and funded museums, it would make the biggest difference and improvement in our relationship with our culture. Society should more fully appreciate acts of the imagination and all of the exceptional and complicated aspects of caring for culture.

It starts with education. And this is my pet (peeve) project. I want Design to be taught in elementary schools and art to be considered a core subject. I would say that the issue is that society needs to more fully accept and understand the role of design and art in our lives and that this must be reflected in what and how we teach young children. We are taught writing and math. And we use writing a great deal. With math, on the other hand, after addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, I am not sure why all of us have to take it farther. I need math to calculate tips, taxes, and balance a checkbook. In my life, I need to know fractions, percentages, and decimals. Math is wonderful and fascinating. But I argue that it is less essential and generally less useful to learn than Design. It amazes me that it isn’t more fully recognized that we use and are affected by Design every minute of our waking and sleeping lives; in our tools, clothes, transportation, communications, furniture, cities, technology… everything. To study art and design is to be better at everything. So, I don’t understand our current educational priorities.

And I think that is where improvement might be made to benefit museums. I think that we might teach children in school about pattern-making, composition, light, color, the manipulation of materials, history of art and culture, and art appreciation so that we will all be better at ANYTHING we may do (these lessons are wildly useful in many fields). It is important to know these things whether you are a creator or a consumer, a consultant or a client. And it is so full of wonder and joy. If we do teach our children these subjects and ways of thinking, then there will be more interest, more funds, more resources, and less questioning of the viability and essential need for art and design, smarter design results, better physical places, more efficient tools, and more vital interplay of museums and people.

(not sure why this trickled off or what I said in conclusion…)