D. Gissen with T. McDonough on "The Architectural Production of Nature, Dendur/New York" - Additional info

[Berkeley-Stanford CityGroup]

[PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY]

The Berkeley-Stanford CityGroup presents:

"The Architectural Production of Nature, Dendur/New York"
Article workshop with author David Gissen, Assistant Professor of
Architectural Theory and History, Department of Architecture,
California College of the Arts, San Francisco.

Response by Tom McDonough, Associate Professor of Art History,
Binghamton University, State University of New York; Visiting
Associate Professor, History of Art, UC Berkeley; Editor, Grey Room.

October 31, 2008
1:00-3:00pm
Snacks and refreshments provided

Room 104
Wurster Hall,
UC Berkeley

We are pleased to bring you David Gissen, who will present his
forthcoming article, "The Architectural Production of Nature, Dendur/
New York," in Grey Room. We are also privileged to have with us the
journal's editor, Tom McDonough, who will initiate the response
segment and open the conversation to audience participants. We kindly
ask all attendees to please read the attached article before the event
in order to participate in the conversation and offer productive
criticism. (CONTACT: jav...@berkeley.edu for a pdf copy if you plan to
attend).

Brief article description by David Gissen: "Through an analysis of the
interior developed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the ancient
Egyptian Temple of Dendur (Roche/Dinkeloo, 1978), I explore the
context under which global museums "produce nature" for the stable
immersion of cultural objects. In the engineering of the Temple's
architectural environment we see the emergence of a form of
institutional, socio-natural power that continues to influence the
international movement of culture. This power situates cultural
artifacts in the name of environmental stability, even as this effort
reflects a larger process of environmental conflict and instability.
In the case of the Metropolitan, the presence of the Temple of Dendur
in New York was linked to international efforts to develop the Aswan
Dam, significant debates by artists and critics over the
transformation of Central Park, and debates regarding the role of
museums and architecture in the production of new forms of indoor
nature."

David Gissen is the author of the forthcoming book Minor
NatureArchitecture and its Immanent Environments (New York: Princeton
Architectural Press) and editor of a forthcoming issue of AD Magazine
"Territory." He is an assistant professor of architectural theory and
history in the Department of Architecture, California College of the
Arts, San Francisco. http://www.cca.edu/academics/barch/faculty/dgissen/

Tom McDonough is the author of "The Beautiful Language of My Century":
Reinventing the Language of Contestation in Postwar France (Cambridge,
Mass. and London: The MIT Press, Coll. "OCTOBER Books," 2007). He is
an Associate Professor of Art History at Binghamton University, State
University of New York. Currently, a Visiting Associate Professor at
the Department of Art History, UC Berkeley, and editor of the journal
Grey Room. http://arthist.binghamton.edu/mcdonough.html

Grey Room is a journal dedicated to the theorization of modern and
contemporary architecture, art, media, and politics. Published
quarterly, it is devoted to the task of promoting and sustaining
critical investigation into each of these fields separately, into
their mutual imbrications, and into the historical forces that mediate
their interactions. http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/152638100750173029

For more information or to join the distribution list, please visit
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Sponsored by the Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities,
University of California at Berkeley, and the Stanford Humanities
Center. Made possible by support from the Mellon Foundation, the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Stanford University
Dean of Research.