Architecture faculty’s work, processes highlighted in Stuckeman School exhibit

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – A new exhibition showcasing the work of faculty within the Department of Architecture open in the Stuckeman Family Building’s Willard Rouse Gallery as part of the Stuckeman School’s Lecture and Exhibit Series. “On/Of Paper: Work by the Faculty of Architecture at Penn State” suggests where and how drawing and paperwork – in the broadest sense of the terms – are essential in an architect’s practice. Drawing, as seen in the exhibition, is an architect’s conduit to sensorial receptivity, intellectual inquiry, design intent, craft-making, technological exploration and constructing the built environment. The exhibition, which is broad in scope as a reflection of the faculty's unique multiplicity, displays work produced in all phases of the architect’s process – from daydreaming to analysis; working drawings to finished renderings; improvisational searching to the documentation that is essential in constructing a building. According to Marcus Shaffer, associate professor of architecture and the show’s curator, the idea for the exhibition came about last year during a free-ranging conversation about drawing. A fifth-year architecture student asked a very basic question: How can students see what faculty mean when they talk about the importance of drawing?

It is our sincere desire that this exhibition leads to essential conversations that provide answers to this question that are relevant. We also hope it enhances a creative culture that values the essential interaction of an architect’s mind, eyes and hands that is drawing, as Michael Graves explained in his popular 2012 New York Times op-ed piece titled, ‘Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing.' – Marcus Shaffer

Faculty members whose work is featured in the exhibit are: Yasmine Abbas, Pep Avilés, Cathy Braasch, Laia Celma, James Cooper, Benay Gürsoy Toykoç, Mehrdad Hadighi, Darla Lindberg, Katsuhiko Muramoto, Shadi Nazarian, Ute Poerschke, Juan Ruescas Baztán, Shaffer and Lee Washesky. “On/Of Paper,” which runs through March 6, is part of a series of events sponsored by the department that highlights and amplifies the critical role of drawing in architectural practice. Other events in the series have included the Robert Reed Drawing Workshops, held last spring at Penn State and in New York City, and the WWW Drawing Workshop in 2013.