Take Note presents selected pivotal moments in the ongoing relationship between writing and architecture.

“In the 1960s, a small oppositional element in architecture forged its own counterculture by turning its energies away from building toward writing. In its hands, the page became a site for design and texts became architectural works in their own right. Born of a desire to foreground the intellectual dimension of architecture by associating it with developments in conceptual art, linguistics, and philosophy, this turn toward writing soon engaged architecture with broader questions of pop culture, mass media, advertising, and emerging technologies, setting in motion a fundamental transformation of the discipline whose momentum remains unabated to this day. Take Note offers an album of snapshots of key episodes in that transformation.”

– Sylvia Lavin

Take Note is led by Sylvia Lavin, Professor and Director of Critical Studies and M.A./Ph.D.Programs in the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) with students Whitney Moon and Esra Kahveci, and developed in collaboration with the CCA. The exhibition features works from the CCA Collection and other archives, as well as works from contemporary architectural studios, including Gehry Partners, Greg Lynn FORM, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Stan Allen Architect, Bernard Tschumi, Reiser+ Umemoto RUR Architecture, and others.

This exhibition is the fifth in a series of CCA exhibitions developed in collaboration with universities. It follows Total Environment: Montreal, 1965–1975 with the Université de Montréal and Alessandra Ponte (2009); Utopia’s Ghost: Postmodernism Reconsidered with Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and Reinhold Martin (2008); Clip/Stamp/Fold 2: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X–197X with Princeton University and Beatriz Colomina (2007); and Inside the Sponge: Students Take on MIT Simmons Hall with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SENSEable City Laboratory and Carlo Ratti (2006).

Gallery Talk
Thursday, 4 February, 7 pm to 9 pm
Free admission
A discussion of the work in the exhibition presented by Sylvia Lavin and students from UCLA.