Join a workshop and discussion organized by the Institute for Public Architecture (IPA) with architects and urban advocates to debate the question of “What is Public”? facilitated by Deborah Gans and Keller Easterling. The workshop is hosted on the occasion of The collectivity project, an artwork by Olafur Eliasson that is presented by High Line Art, the program of public art presented on and around the High Line. As the project invites the public to build a vision of their ideal future city in almost two tons of Lego bricks, the goal of this gathering is to investigate the possibilities of public space in the city, and to gauge the impact those spaces have on the surrounding neighborhood.

The Institute for Public Architecture (IPA) hosts a residency program for architects that allows them to conduct research and develop work in the public interest. It also engages the public through exhibitions, workshops, symposia, and publications.Through all its activities, the IPA seeks to give the public a voice in the shaping of our built environment.

ABOUT THE FACILITATORS:

Deborah Gans FAIA is a professor in Architecture at Pratt Institute and principal of Gans studio, whose work includes urban master plans and research on innovative forms of housing for emerging social needs. Current work includes a community-based plan for Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn in the aftermath of Sandy and the creative use of city owned vacant land for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA). Gans studio has been honored by the AIA for their work with Kiki Smith at the Museum and Synagogue at Eldridge Street as well as their residences, and has exhibited their projects on cities at the Venice Biennial, RIBA London and IFA Paris.

Keller Easterling is an architect, writer and professor at Yale. Her most recent book, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (Verso, 2014), examines global infrastructure networks as a medium of polity. Another recent book, Subtraction (Sternberg, 2014), considers building removal or how to put the development machine into reverse. Other books include: Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades (MIT, 2005) and Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America (MIT, 1999).

ABOUT OLAFUR ELIASSON’S “THE COLLECTIVITY PROJECT”
High Line Art presents Olafur Eliasson’s The collectivity project, an installation of 2 million white LEGO® bricks that features an imaginary cityscape conceived and designed by the public. Visitors to the High Line are welcomed to play with the installation, building and rebuilding the structures over time. As the inevitable entropy of the piece begins to soften the hard edges of the designed structures, and mounds of loose pieces gather in the corners between buildings, a beautiful collective creation takes form. Installed in the growing shadow of the real estate development of Hudson Yards, the mutable, human-scale artwork provides a compelling counterpoint to the concrete-and-steel towers that form the project’s backdrop.

Photo by Timothy Schenck.