Statue of activist Leonard Peltier. All images courtesy of the Sn Francisco Art Institute
Peering out over the San Francisco Bay toward Alcatraz is a monumental statue that pays homage to an American Indian Movement activist who’s been incarcerated for decades. Created by Portuguese-American artist Rigo 23 in 2016, the 12-foot-tall figure resembles a small self-portrait that the activist, Leonard Peltier, painted while imprisoned.
Wearing a simple white shirt, yellow pants, and no shoes, Peltier sits on a cement base, which is the actual size of his cell, in a pensive position. “There was something Buddha-like about the pose, and it reminded me of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker,’ which is so muscular and epic,” Rigo 23 told Hyperallergic about the original portrait. “Usually, images of heroism and humanity are epic, and this is just a man sitting on the ground wearing prison-issued clothes. It has this different kind of spirituality.”
A member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa and also of Lakota and Dakota descent, Peltier was a well-known leader in the American Indian Movement throughout the 1960s and ’70s, having spearheaded multiple protests and marches to end injustices. Despite denying the charges, he has been imprisoned since 1977 after being convicted of killing two FBI agents in a 1975 shooting on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment for the incident, which has resulted in campaigns for his clemency.
Angela Davis on Peltier’s feet
Rigo 23 designed the work with detachable feet, which have traveled to Standing Rock Reservation, Alcatraz, and Crow Dog’s Paradise. The decision has allowed activists, including Angela Davis, to stand on top of the wooden pair in solidarity, an act that an Instagram account has been documenting.
The oversized statue was moved to the roof of the San Francisco Art Institute in October—watch the full dedication ceremony with speeches from Peltier’s children on YouTube—where it received one of its more celebratory welcomes. Met with both support and animosity throughout its history, the work was removed early from a 2016 visit to the Katzen Art Center at the American University in Washington, D.C. Spurred by a complaint from the president of the FBI Agents Association, the action resulted in the statue’s displacement for about a year, the artist says.
Its current position facing Alcatraz has similar significance, considering an activist group’s occupation of the former federal prison during the Nixon administration. In 1969, Indians of All Tribes seized the site in hopes of turning it into a school, cultural center, and museum. As the U.S. government attempted to regain control, the group established a clinic, kitchen, and education centers for the 19 months it claimed the island.
The statue will remain at SFAI until March 28, 2021. Although the institution is closed to visitors, it’s offering a virtual tour of the work on its site.
Readers are inspired by the vibrant kitchens highlighted in our latest roundup, including the bright yellow kitchen in a Beijing apartment by MDDM Studio.
Turquoise cabinets and sliding doors contrast with the walls, while terrazzo fixtures made from green, orange and beige stones add to the colourful space.
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Monolithic volumes clad in stainless steel reflect the trees surrounding the National Museum of the United States Army, which architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill has completed in Virginia.
The National Museum of the United States Army (NMUSA), opened yesterday, on Veterans Day, as the first in America dedicated to to the country's oldest military service.
Laser-cut stainless steel clads the National Museum of the United States Army
SOM fragmented the 185,000-square-foot (17,187-square-metre) museum into five pavilions of varying sizes and heights – the tallest is 100 feet (30 metres) – and connected them with glazed walkways.
The volumes are designed to follow a three-foot (0.9-metre) grid system.
The museum is located in Fort Belvoir Military Installation in Virginia
Stainless steel panels, laser-cut to precisely fit the grid, cover the blocks and reflect the natural surrounds in the bucolic Fort Belvoir Military Installation in Virginia, which is just 20 miles from Washington DC.
To add "dynamism" to the exterior, corners of the blocks feature glass sections and aluminium fins spaced 18 inches apart.
Sections of glass and aluminium fins are intended to add "dynamism" to the exterior
Stainless steel pylons matching the cladding are used as stands to showcase individual soldier stories. They are arranged to lead from the exterior promenade, through a glass entrance and into the exhibition hall.
To continue this storytelling the grand lobby has a wall made of black granite listing every campaign from the Army's history, while the terrazzo floor is inscribed with the Department of the Army's emblem.
A black granite wall lists every campaign from the Army's history
The white coffered ceiling above the lobby, which is also intended to be used as an events space, is decorated with 22 rows of translucent, laminated glass panels coloured to match Army campaign streamers.
"Symbolism and community were at the core of our design," explained SOM design partner Colin Koop.
"We wanted to create a place where veterans and their families could feel at home, and establish a new centre of national significance that would, in its architecture, express that very significance and evoke three ideals: discipline, modesty and rigorousness."
Laminated glass panels in the ceiling were coloured to match Army campaign streamers
The ground floor of the three-storey museum comprises shops, a cafe, exhibition spaces, a 300-degree theatre and a terrace. A wide wooden staircase leads from the lobby to the first floor where additional exhibition spaces are located.
The Veterans' Hall on the second floor is lined in wood, forming part of a natural material palette that includes stone, American white oak and ash.
Natural materials like wood are used throughout
Other areas on the top level include the outdoor Medal of Honor Garden, which features a tall granite wall engraved with the names of every medal recipient. Covering the floor is stripey, granite paving decorated with the Army Medal of Honor's emblem and stainless steel stars.
SOM intends to further extend across NMUSA across its 84-acre (34-hectare) site with a memorial garden, parade field and grandstand and an Army Trail.
The museum includes a range of exhibition spaces
The museum is completed with a number of environmentally-friendly design details to reduce energy consumption – including extra insulation, high-efficiency glazing and LED lighting, automatic daylighting control and a green roof. It has been awarded LEED Silver certification in recognition of these elements.
“Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat,” September – October 1887, Paris, 4.5 × 37.2 centimeters, Van Gogh Museum
A point of levity during the temporary shutdowns of museums and cultural institutions during the last few months has been the plethora of digital archives making artworks and historical objects available for perusing from the comfort and safety of our couches. A recent addition is Van Gogh Worldwide, a massive collection of the post-impressionist artist’s paintings, sketches, and drawings.
From landscapes to self-portraits to classic still lifes, the archive boasts more than 1,000 artworks, which are sorted by medium, period, and participating institution—those include the Van Gogh Museum, Kröller-Müller Museum, the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands Institute for Art History, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Each digital piece is supported by details about the work, any restorations, and additional images.
In his short lifetime that spanned just 37 years, the prolific Dutch artist created thousands of works, many of which he finished in his final months. His thick brushstrokes are widely recognized today, particularly in masterpieces like “The Starry Night,” although his sketches, drawings, and prints offer a nuanced look at his entire oeuvre. (via My Modern Met)
“Soup Distribution in a Public Soup Kitchen,” March 1883, ‘s Gravenhage, drawing, 56.5 × 44.4 centimeters, Van Gogh Museum
“Montmartre: Behind the Moulin de la Galette,” late July 1887, Paris, 81 × 100 centimeters, Van Gogh Museum
“Terrace of a café at night (Place du Forum),” c. 16 September 1888, Arles, painting, 80.7 × 65.3 centimeters, Kröller-Müller Museum
“Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette,” 18 January 1886 – early February 1886, Antwerpen, painting, 32.3 × 24.8 centimeters, Van Gogh Museum
We should be applauding social housing projects, but resist the rhetoric that sees council housing as the only solution to the housing crisis, says Owen Hopkins.
Donald Trump may have been vanquished, but Trumpism is still alive and well, as evidenced by the 71 million votes he received – the highest ever for a US presidential candidate, apart, of course, from his vanquisher, president-elect Joe Biden.
After four years of Trump, we've become used to hearing about right-wing populism, which has spawned manifestations across the world, from Bolsonaro in Brazil and Orbán in Hungary to Boris Johnson in England. But populism is not confined to the right, it is also alive and kicking on the left – for whom architecture is central to linking the macro to the micro, just as it is for the right.
A neat illustration of the micro scale can be seen in a new council housing project in Greenwich in south-east London by the British architect Peter Barber, which he recently tweeted out. It's the type of project that would be familiar to anyone who has followed Barber's career since he came to prominence with the Donnybrook Quarter in Hackney in 2006.
Barber's commitment to the social value of architecture has made him an almost sainted figure among the architectural commentariat
Since then, Barber has built a reputation as quite possibly Britain's leading housing architect, renowned for his cleverly planned and generously detailed projects. Aligned with this is Barber's commitment to the social value of architecture, which has made him an almost sainted figure among the architectural commentariat.
As a result, Barber's work is something of an ever-present on social media. So far so familiar, you might say. But what made Barber's tweet about this project catch my eye was that it had been liked a massive 57,000 times – and counting.
For anyone active on "architecture Twitter" this is in stark contrast to the recent proliferation of Trumpian "alt-right" accounts which deploy "traditional architecture" as a way of promoting deeply unpleasant far-right views about some kind of mythical "authentic" western values.
So, it was refreshing and not a little bit uplighting to see something so different generate such a response.
Reading the replies, it was striking that many of the people who responded positively did so not just because it is such a well-considered architectural project, but because it is council housing, standing as the built embodiment of collective values that many on the political left hold dear. Those who were critical of the project were generally so for the same reason.
I couldn't help wondering whether what I was seeing here was council housing functioning as cypher for political ideology
Perhaps it's a function of the inherent reductiveness of social media, but I couldn't help wondering whether what I was seeing here was council housing functioning as cypher for political ideology in a way that's not so different to how traditional architecture is used by those "alt-right" Twitter accounts. To be absolutely clear, this is not suggesting a false equivalence between whatever political position one might infer in being pro council housing and the abhorrent views of the "alt-right". Instead, it's about a commonality or equivalence of tactics.
If this sounds a stretch, consider the familiar left-wing "critique" of the housing crisis: the vilification of private landlords, housing developers and the Right to Buy policy introduced by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government 40 years ago – all examples of blame directed at elites. Then, in contrast, is the idea that only the state has the solutions, through tighter regulation and, above all else, a massive council housing programme.
Running through all of this is the attempt to reduce a complex situation to a simple solution – think of Trump's exhortations that only he could "Make America Great Again". But at a structural level, this is little different from believing only the state has the answers, a position that, when it comes to architecture, fetishises council housing with the same conviction as the right fetishises traditional styles.
The inescapable question that follows is whether we should still be troubled by these populist tactics when they are used to promote policies we happen to agree with, like building more council housing?
What Barber builds is actually very different to the populist mass council housing building programme advocated by the left
This question becomes more pertinent when we realise the substantial disconnect that exists between this left-wing populist rhetoric and projects by the likes of Barber that it so idolises. What Barber builds is actually very different to the populist mass council housing building programme advocated by the left as the solution to all our housing ills. Barber's projects are generally small in scale, designed by a private practice rather than the public sector, and, like much of the best council housing being built right now, are generally in London.
The latter is a quirk of the city's sky-high property prices, which allows the more ambitious (and well located) local authorities to use units built for private sale to subsidise those developed for social rents. While this arrangement is a function of councils still being limited by central government, it simply could not happen in a housing market that wasn't so overheated.
Given this, one might wonder whether Barber would actually be able to deliver housing of such high quality if the political situation was more aligned to the one advocated by left-wing populists. It is certainly the case that the highly specific nature of his projects and the way they are tied into their sites – on which their success to a significant degree rests – would be more difficult to achieve on larger, more comprehensive, "mass" scales.
All this goes to show how little concerned populists whether of the right or the left are with actual architecture
After all, this is one of the key architectural lessons of the post-war era, which judging by much of the council housing going up in London right now is one that almost all of its architects, Barber included, are fully signed up to. This simple fact makes clear just how misguided the populist rhetoric that harks back to those glory days actually is in its naive assumption that our relationships to state, environment and to each other are little changed since the 1950s and 1960s.
All this goes to show how little concerned populists, whether of the right or the left, are with actual architecture. For the right, the only thing that matters is style; for the left, it's council housing and state intervention. Anything else is a betrayal. And it's this insistence on a zero-sum game that is populism's fatal flaw.
The opposite of populism is pluralism, diversity and multiplicity. History tells us that it's the kind of culture that produces the best architecture, not one of conformity. So while we should certainly be applauding council housing projects today – and Barber's especially – we must resist populist rhetoric that sees council housing – as proxy for the state – as the only solution to the housing crisis, just as we do the right's weaponisation of traditional styles. A political position that claims it has all the answers leaves no room for innovation or doing things differently.
It's always tempting to look for the easy solution, but we should be immediately suspicious of claims there is only one answer to a problem, as much as we of anyone who says there's only one way to build. While Trump's fall could lead us to think that populism is on the wane, on the ground the fight against populisms of the right and of the left is only just beginning.
