About this Video
Lebbeus Woods spoke at Postopolis!, an event organised by BLDDBLOG, City of Sound, Inhabitat, Subtopia and the Storefront for Art and Architecture. A list of available videos from the event can be found here.
Lebbeus Woods no longer sees his sketches leave the page and turned into actual buildings. Even so, he is revered in certain circles as a legendary architect, the kind that can see beyond the societal confines that thinks in terms of practicality.
Some call him a visionary, a title he doesn’t like. Although his work is experimental and contains complicated layers of commentary, he — like most artists — resents the separation that comes with titles.
Woods is the co-founder of the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture (RIEA), an organization that seeks to encourage architectural schools to teach students “less in terms of understanding existing typologies and techniques and more in the forging of new ways of approaching old and new problems alike.”
Much of his Woods’ work centers on cities that have been broken or shaken — San Francisco, Sarajevo, Havana — and is abundant in medical symbolism. Cities that have been hurt, argues Woods, should not simply be rebuilt as though nothing has happened. The new should rise out of the old, complete with scabs, scars, and new tissue.
Although different from the “design advocacy” movement in architecture that occurred in the 60s, Woods sees architecture as a way of asking provocative questions, and ask questions he does.
In the video above, Woods discusses Hollywood, teaching architecture, and the sources of his inspiration in a conversation with BLDGBLOG’s Geoff Manaugh, City of Sound’s Dan Hill and Subtopia’s Bryan Finoki.
Karla Cornejo is the newest member of ScribeMedia.Org and will be interning with us throughout the summer. Her favorite flavor is chocolate, her favorite food is brownies, and her favorite drink? Chocolate milk.
