Dialogues, Art and Architecture

About

For the first time, Nancy Hoffman Gallery will show architectural models in juxtaposition to works by gallery artists.

“Dialogues” came about as a result of my visit to Hariri and Hariri Architecture’s offices, where models, created over the years, are readily viewable.  The models are not simply architectural models, practical proposals for projects, residential, commercial, etc.  These are models with a vision.  Each is a work of art, made with tender loving care over months; each is artful, intriguing, inspiring and stimulating.  Each exemplary of the firm’s vision to “create places of contemplation, places that incorporate time and memory, in which there is a sense of a passage or a journey.”

I was stimulated by the visuals in the models and how several of them were like a melody to songs
by gallery artists.  A model for a building constructed like a bridge, Fog Habitat proposed for The Embarcadero in San Francisco, called to mind Don Eddy’s recent paintings of the bridges of New York, such as Metal City.  Hariri and Hariri Architecture’s unconventional lighthouse, Beacon of Light, a stone, glass and steel sculpture struck a chord with Sarah Bridgland Constructions on paper of balsa wood, paint, construction board and oil pastel.  The model for “Mobius Strip Hybrid Stair” echoed Ilan Averbuch’s The Tower and the Snail, a sculpture with a tower not unlike the spiral of the staircase.  Visual parallels.

Rather than address the topic of art and architecture didactically or historically, this exhibition is a visual celebration of the communality of form as it moves from architecture to painting, from architecture to sculpture, from architecture to drawing.

Hariri & Hariri Architecture is a New York based architecture and design firm established in 1986 by Iranian-born Cornell-educated sisters Gisue Hariri and Mojgan Hariri.  For three decades, they have focused on a holistic approach to design ranging from master planning and architecture to interior design, furniture, lighting, product design and jewelry.  The firm’s approach is rooted in the belief that design is fundamental to improving the quality of life.  With an integrated, unified approach architecture can become a total work of art.  The Hariris’ fascination with organic forms and faceted geometry of rocks, crystals and geological formations has resulted in a series of award winning architectural projects, product, lighting, furniture and a jewelry line.