Sorry for the small renderings…I’ll try to get some bigger ones later but there is some pretty exciting news for the dreary and desolate UB North Campus- a new, contemporary, large and physically appealing building will be under construction starting the Fall of 2009 if all the funding is covered. Somehow UB has held up a solid reputation for its Engineering school despite sticking grad students in trailers for almost 30 years…soon enough that will no longer be a problem.

The building looks fantastic. It will be weird so see some red and white against the sea of dark brown.

Also looks EXTREMELY influenced by the Engineering Building of a school in Munich that my friend studies at. Imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery though.

*Renderings courtesy of the UB Spectrum.

Although not officially announce on the school’s website yet, it looks as if this semester’s lecture series will be absolutely star-studded! Just looking real quick at a poster in Hayes Hall I noticed these three big ones…

Thom Mayne of Morphosis whose work I have mentioned more than a few times. An extremely fascinating mind and I will not miss this one for the world.

Diller, Scofidio and Renfro who are probably most famous for their Boston ICA which I briefly blogged about in the late spring. A very interesting firm although some might consider them a bit flashy…it will be interesting to see what they’re up to.

The other one that stood out was Kenneth Frampton, who has a lot of great writings on architecture and is one of the foremost experts on modern architecture.

Usually one or two names stand out on the semester list…I can’t wait for these three to come. I’ll link to the official list when its released online

“The problem of insecurity cannot be solved by spreading people out more thinly, trading the characteristics of the city for the suburbs.”
-Jane Jacobs

There have been a few violent assaults/rapes in and around UB North this semester, starting to instill in people that just because its not the city-doesn’t mean that you’re completely safe.

In fact-some of the areas on and around UB North could become havens for rapes and assaults simply through poor and anti-social design.

Vast VAST surface lots with poor to little lighting, massive single use structures and complexes, discouraged sidewalk activity etc etc…

The city of Buffalo has to deal with the “stop snitching” movement, but in UB north there isn’t even any one around to “snitch”. Its hard to believe that there aren’t more crimes like this occurring.

UB is working on its “UB2020″ plan and with that should come some changes to the way UB North works as a mini-city of sorts. With much thought into making it mixed-use, well lit, pedestrian friendly and giving the place a sense of community…UB North can maintain its reputation as being the clean safe escape from the city campus.

SEPTEMBER 12 / 301 Crosby Hall @ 5:30 pm

Studio Luz is based in Boston and was founded by Anthony Piermarini and Hansy Better Barraza in 2002. In 2006 the studio was highlighted by Architectural Record as one of America’s notable emerging practices and in 2007 received a citation in the Architecture awards for their proposal for the Campus of Hope in Haiti.

Hansy Better Barraza earned her first professional B.Arch. degree from Cornell University and a Master’s of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Design School. She received the 2004 Young Architect’s Award from the Architectural League of New York.

Anthony Piermarini earned his first professional B.Arch. degree at Cornell University and post-professional M.Arch. degree from the Harvard Design School. A registered architect, he was nominated for the National American Institute of Architects’ Yound Architect’s Award.

Anthony and Hansy received the 2004 Young Architect’s Award from the Architectural League of New York. They both teach at the Rhode Island School of Design and have served as Visiting Critics at Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard, and at Yale University.

UB School of Architecture & Planning
Hayes Hall 3435 Main Street Buffalo NY 14214
Update your subscription preferences: sap@ap.buffalo.edu

Benefit Screening of “Strange Culture” for CAE Trial Fund

Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 7pm

Market Arcade Film & Art Center

639 Main St., Buffalo NY

You don’t have to be paranoid for ‘Strange Culture’ to scare the hell out of you. - Reuters

A special benefit screening of “Strange Culture”, Lynn Hershman Leeson’s critically-acclaimed new documentary about Buffalo artist Steven Kurtz, will take place on Saturday Sept 8, 2007 at 7pm at the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center, as a co-presentation with Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. Tickets are $10, and all proceeds will go to the Critical Art Ensemble Trial Fund. The documentary, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival,
will have its Buffalo theatrical run at the Market Arcade September 7-13th. The Market Arcade is located at 639 Main Street in downtown Buffalo, NY.

Professor Kurtz will be present to answer questions after the special Benefit Screening on September 8.

The Case:

Strange Culture (2007, 75min) chronicles the surreal nightmare of Steven Kurtz, an art professor at SUNY Buffalo and a founding member, with his late wife, Hope, of the internationally exhibited art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) critical-art.net Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have hosted CAE’s participatory theater projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and the many issues surrounding it. In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing to present Free Range Grain, a project examining GM agriculture, at a group show called The Interventionists: Art in the Social Sphere at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Police who responded to Steve Kurtz’s 911 call deemed the couple’s art suspicious, and called the FBI. Within hours the artist was illegally detained as a suspected “bioterrorist” as dozens of federal agents in Hazmat suits sifted through his work and impounded his computers, manuscripts, books, his cat, and even his wife’s body. Today Kurtz and long-time collaborator Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, face trumped-up charges of mail fraud and wire fraud, punishable, thanks to the PATRIOT Act, by up to 20 years in prison.

The Documentary:

Since the ongoing nature of the case prevents Kurtz from discussing its details, Hershman Leeson has enlisted actors to dramatize parts of the story, skillfully interweaving dialogue with news footage, animation, interviews, testimonials, and footage of Kurtz himself. Tilda Swinton
(”Chronicles of Narnia” “Broken Flowers”) and Thomas Jay Ryan (”Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind”) play Hope and Steve Kurtz, and Peter Coyote (”ET” “Erin Brockovich”) plays Dr. Robert Ferrell. “Strange Culture” poses questions that are more universal than local at this point in our nation’s history. How can artists whose works are critical of government policy
continue to create freely given the escalating paranoia of the state? What liberties do we loose to protect freedom? The case of Kurtz and Ferrell is of concern not only to scientists, artists, and activists, but to anyone interested in contributing to vital public debate about the actions of their government. More information about the film, including trailers, can be accessed on the web at www.strangeculture.net

The Benefit:

Buffalo Art Community Joins Worldwide Support of Kurtz and Ferrell Because the case threatens to establish dangerous precedent for artists and for anyone exercising their First Amendment rights, it has attracted worldwide attention, with fundraisers to support Kurtz and Ferrell organized on five continents. On September 8th, at 7pm, join the many cultural organizations, individual artists and scientists, and concerned citizens who have responded to this outrageous, politically-motivated case, to raise urgently needed money for Kurtz and Ferrell’s legal defense.

For more information about the case please visit
casedefensefund.org

The Market Arcade Film & Art Center is located in Downtown Buffalo. For more

information about the Benefit, please contact Carolyn Tennant

(carolyn@hallwalls.org), Media Arts Director at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts

Center: 716-854-1694

A nice piece in today’s paper about the man behind the recently closed Mondo Video. I was excited to see Mondo come to Main Street in the Heights-thinking that our decaying retail strip was about to start a comeback. Sadly it never caught on. UB students don’t need it because we can just download movies on our hub for free and everyone else can just use netflix or buy it on Amazon or whatever.

The University District was really starting to crumble when my family and I left in 1995. I remember seeing a decent amount of cool stores that clearly were there to accomadte college kids like the Co-Op, Ben and Jerry’s, and Das Boot (shoe store, duh). My parents still reminice over some of the cool places and things to do in the Heights back in their grad school days-even on Bailey-which is quite unfathomable nowadays.

Its not a lost cause though. The street improvements on Main are terrific. A huge public transportation hub is there, the University is still there and restaurants like Shango and Ming Tea are successful draws from around North Buffalo and Amherst. Talking Leaves provides books that you can’t find in most bookstores. Main street can still be a niche retail area if things improve a little in the area.

No one at UB wants to live in the Heights unless its all they can afford. Most would rather commute from Elmwood or Downtown than take a 10 minute walk to campus-thats how unsafe people feel there.

I heard an idea thrown around in which UB would buy houses in the heights, renovate them, and then rent them out to students, afterall UB has refused to build new housing despite increasing enrollment every year. Its a sickening feeling to drive or walk by the place where you grew up and see it get a little bit worse with each trip- UB has the ability to change that because the University district begins and ends with them.

I always see these when I leave my classes in Clemens Hall in Amherst. They remind me of grain elevators and I think they might serve a ventilation purpose. But I do not know the reason for their function or design.

One of the “New York Five” archtiects, Peter Eisenman, came to UB and so did TONS of students…moving the lecture from Crosby to a lecture hall in Diefendorf. I sat in the isle in an extremely uncomfortable position like many students, for two hours…well worth it though.

All I gotta say, is that guy is FACINATING. Wow. I sterotype most architects of today’s age and thankfully Eisenman doesn’t fit it at all. He immediately told everyone to put away their pens, papers, and laptops. He said he had no interest in showing his previous works in a fancy slideshow and instead talked about architecture’s path in today’s society. Really incredible stuff and I’ll paraphrase some things of note.

-A lot of popular architects today feel the need to push the limits and be radical even though society’s climate doesn’t suggest the feeling of supression as it did in a previous time.

-He tries to avoid cliche’s. Even his own, such as using scaling and therefore is not in his new project for a train station in Mt. Vesuvius.

-Voting on everything isn’t usually the right thing. Especially with architecture. The new WTC designs, for example, should have been selected by architecture people, not the general public.

-Calatrava’s work is the elevator music of architecture. Its only eye candy and nothing else. [OOOOOHHHHH SNAP. ITS ONNNNN!]

Most architects that are highly regarded know they are good and coincidentally show through their demeanor that they are in love with themselves for it, Eisenman is truly unique and cutting edge but he’s self-depricating and easy going…something hard to find with a lot of today’s big shots in the world of architecture.

Not every day do you come out of a lecture and go “Wow. That was amazing…and now I’m going to think about it for the rest of the night.” But that is exactly what happened.

Went to “UB an Idol” tonight at Student Union since some of my friends we performing and THE WORST possible thing was done by the judges.

The final three were on stage. They announced who won 2nd place. Then they announced 1st place…my friend won! Oh wait…the crowd went crazy and a minute later the judges announce…

“I’m sorry we made a mistake, Megan didn’t actually win, Whittney did. Sorry.”

Dude, Megan looked like the world just came to a crashing hault and I don’t blame her at all. Judges fucked up baddddddd.

Say what you will about the crime on the East Side of Buffalo, but never once did someone try to break into our house or cause any harm or steal from us.

Whereas today I awoke to an empty wallet in my “safe and secure” Amherst dorm. w00t.