Cocktails and Conversations
Friday, May 17th, 6:30 pm to 8:30pmNY Center for Architecture
536 La Guardia Place, NY, NY
In order to foster dialogue about the design of the built environment, cultureNOW teamed up with the AIA NY Chapter's Architectural Dialogue Committee to start a new Friday night lecture series.
Cocktails & Conversations pairs an architect and a critic, journalist, or curator. Of course, it wouldn't be Friday night without a suitable beverage. A custom drink inspired by the architect's work was created especially for the occasion.
Brad Cloepfil, Founding Principal and Lead Designer, Allied Works Architecture
Brad Cloepfil (b. 1956) studied architecture at the University of Oregon and went on to earn an advanced degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture. After more than a decade of working and teaching in Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York and Switzerland, Cloepfil founded Allied Works in his native Portland, Oregon in 1994. The New York City office followed in 2003.
Cloepfil’s earliest influences lay outside the field of architecture. While studying at the University of Oregon, he drew inspiration from the vast landscape and monumental works of civil engineering in the Pacific Northwest. While studying in New York he was introduced to the simple yet profoundly resonant gestures of land and installation artists of that time.
His body of work is as informed by the land and the history of place as it is by formal training, and it is one that cuts a clear line through much of the rhetoric and formal novelty surrounding the practice today. His approach to design combines a research-intensive focus on the specific character of each project with an understanding of the profoundly affecting possibilities of building.
In addition to leading all aspects of creative work at Allied Works, Cloepfil has held guest professorships at leading American architecture and design schools across the country over the past 17 years. He is also a frequent lecturer, panelist and judge at universities, cultural institutions and creative organizations throughout the world.
David van der Leer, Executive Director of the Van Alen Institute
David van der Leer is an urban thinker and activator, and the new Executive Director of the Van Alen Institute in New York City. Van der Leer was previously Associate Curator, Architecture and Urban Studies and Curator, BMW Guggenheim Lab at the Guggenheim Museum. BMW Guggenheim Lab is a mobile urban laboratory traveling to major cities worldwide: so far it visited New York, Berlin and Mumbai. In addition, Van der Leer curated stillspotting nyc, a two-year multidisciplinary project that took the museum programming out into the streets of the five boroughs to find special moments of stillness. Van der Leer first worked on the exhibitions ¨Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward' and ¨Contemplating the Void: Interventions in the Guggenheim Museum'. In 2012 he was co-curator for the American Pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale, and for the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture of 2011, he curated an exhibition on new towns.
Toby Cecchini, Bartender & Author
Toby is a writer and bartender based in New York City. He has written on food, wine and spirits for GQ, Food and Wine, and The New York Times. His first book, Cosmopolitan: A Bartender's Life, was published in 2003. He is currently at work on his second book, a travelogue of spirits based on his travels for The New York Times' Living and travel magazines. He began bartending at the Odeon in 1987, where he is credited with creating the internationally recognized version of the Cosmopolitan cocktail in New York. He followed that with stints in several bars including Passersby, which he owned until 2008.