AIA New York Chapter

Center for Architecture

Form and Function: The Intersection of Poetry and Architecture

Saturday, 09/27/2008, 11:30am–9:00pm

The affinity between poetry (from the Indo-European root meaning “to build”) and architecture (“to weave, or fabricate”) is as old as our language. In this symposium, lead practitioners from both disciplines speculate on the vital connections between poetry and architecture, and deepen our “reading” of the literary and built landscapes that inform our lives. Co-sponsored by the Center for Architecture. Funded, in part, by the New York Council for the Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Graham Foundation.

11:30am: Latin American Confluences: Poetry & Architecture at the Mid-Century
A. S. Bessa, Carlos Brillembourg, Rubén Gallo & Mónica de la Torre

Far from merely reflecting the zeitgeist, poetry and architecture often actively engage to change it. The subject of this exchange between poets, scholars and architects ranges from the parallel emergence of concrete poetry and idealized civic and socio-economic designs in mid-century South America to the politics of individual expression.

A. S. Bessa is a curator and the author of Oyvind Fahlstrom: The Art of Writing and editor of Novas: Selected Writings of Haroldo de Campos. Carlos Brillembourg, a New York-based architect, is the editor of Latin American Architecture 1929-1960. Rubén Gallo teaches at Princeton University and the author of Mexican Modernity: The Avant-Garde and the Technological Revolution. Mónica de la Torre is the author of the poetry collections Acúfenos and Talk Shows and the co-editor, with Michael Wiegers, of Reversible Monuments: Mexican Contemporary Poetry.

2:30pm: Architexts
Louise Braverman, Annie Finch & Jill Stoner
Architects Jill Stoner and Louise Braverman and poet Annie Finch consider what architects and poets can gain from a mutual exploration of each other’s disciplines—ranging from the conceptual use of space to the seamless synthesis of metaphor.

Louise Braverman is a New York-based architect, who has recently completed the design for the permanent home of Poets House.

Annie Finch is a poet, translator, editor and critic. She directs the Stonecoast MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine.

Jill Stoner, author of Poems for Architects: An Anthology, has written extensively on poetry and architecture. An architect in Northern California, she teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

5:00pm: A Conversation with Architect Lebbeus Woods & Poet Susan Stewart
One of our country's most acclaimed and maverick architects, Lebbeus Woods, and renowned poet-critic Susan Stewart share insights from their respective roles as readers, writers and architects of ideas as they highlight current projects.

A theoretician and architect who focuses on experimentation, Lebbeus Woods's work is in numerous public collections, including the Whitney Museum of Art and the Getty Research Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and is currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art as part of "Dreamland: Architectural Experiments since the 1970s." Susan Stewart’s books of poetry include Red Rover and Columbarium, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Susan Stewart’s books of poems include Red Rover and Columbarium, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her most recent books of criticism are The Open Studio and Poetry and the Fate of the Senses. She teaches at Princeton University.

7:00pm: Between Forms: A Poetry Reading
A. S. Bessa, Gregg Biglieri, Brenda Coultas, Patricia Spears Jones, Annie Finch, Frances Richard, Susan Stewart, Mónica de la Torre & Marjorie Welish

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