Architecture to Scale

According to the Art Institute, Architecture to Scale "an architect's work requires a variety of approaches, media, and outputs," so it "demonstrates the complex architectural processes from research to production" in these two architects. Tigerman, now in his mid 80s, is a powerful voice in Chicago architecture through his work, writing, teaching (most notably, he co-founded Archeworks in 1994), and other endeavors (he is a founding member in the Chicago Architectural Club, an important local institution); in 2013 AIA Chicago awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award. Tigerman's penchant for Postmodern forms comes across clearly in the design of his half of the exhibition, where gable forms are employed for walls, paint on the walls, and skeletal portals that lead visitors into a space with numerous models and drawings, most from the 1980s.

Both the exhibition design and the projects on display exhibit Tigerman's mix of humor and seriousness; the former is embodied by sometimes overly literal references in his form-making (most famously in a building modeled on male and female anatomy), while the latter comes across in the skill and craft of his models and drawings as well as his approach to subject matter like the Holocaust. His poetic entry to the Berlin Wall Competition (below) also displays the importance of religion and myth in his work, as the Eden-like rows of sycamore trees frame the wall and a pair of columns modeled on a passage from the Bible.

The contribution of Zago Architecture (Andrew Zago and Laura Bouwman) is different in a number of ways, especially in terms of scale, subject matter, and execution. XYT: Detroit Streets, a research project from 2008, surveys parts of the city through frontal images that are stitched together to create a panorama displayed across a long wall in an adjacent room. The slowly panning and rippling panorama recalls projects like Ed Ruscha's famous Every Building on the Sunset Strip book from 1966; in each case the street elevation is the primary means of representing a place.

According to the Art Institute, Zago's contribution "capture[s] the essence of the contemporary urban condition as seen in Detroit," but also "highlights how the firm’s research on representation has influenced the development of its architecture projects." This influence is seen most clearly in the firm's contribution to another exhibition, MoMA's 2012 Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, some images of which are on display in Architecture to Scale.

Also on display at the Art Institute, and worth seeing, is Chicagoisms, which looks at the city's history while also asking contemporary architects (Bureau Spectacular, DOGMA, MVDRV, Organization for Permanent Modernity, PORT, Sam Jacob, UrbanLab, Weathers, and WW) to look at Chicago's future. Although the exhibition is awkwardly crammed into the Kisho Kurokawa Gallery in the museum's Modern Wing – a gallery that connects a café one side with restrooms and more galleries on another side, making it as much a corridor as an exhibition space – there is plenty of interesting viewpoints to digest in the nine future manifestos and the book (Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation, by Alexander Eisenschmidt and Jonathan Mekinda) they are based on.