by Center for Architecture
On Monday, October 1, the eighth-annual Archtober, a month-long celebration of architecture and design, kicked off with the opening night party for the exhibition Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture at the Center for Architecture, an exhibition curated and designed by Sekou Cooke with graphic design by WeShouldDoItAll (WSDIA) and graffiti by Chino. Nearly 500 guests gathered at the opening night party to enjoy DJing by Watson, dancing, drinks, and snacks.
Organized by the Center for Architecture in collaboration with 60+ partners and sponsors, the 2018 installment of Archtober gathers events ranging from daily building tours and lectures by design experts, to architecture-themed competitions and parties.
As the month moves along, the festival’s popular Building of the Day series of architect-led walking tours continues, with highlights including The Shed (Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group), 325 Kent (SHoP Architects), TWA Hotel at JFK (Eero Saarinen, Beyer Blinder Belle, Lubrano Ciavarra Architects), and Kew Gardens Hills Library (WORKac). The Workplace Wednesdays series also returns. Each week, an architectural firm will invite the public to their offices to host a workshop, talk, or presentation. This year’s featured firms are SITU Studio, Steven Holl Architects, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners, and WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism.
“Archtober 2018 celebrates architecture and design in our city. As New Yorkers, we are lucky to have such a vibrant ecosystem of organizations highlighting the importance of design in everyday life,” says Benjamin Prosky, Assoc. AIA, Executive Director of AIA New York and the Center for Architecture.
From lectures to film screenings and design workshops, Archtober partner events run the length of the month. National Design Week, put on by the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum returns once again, along with the celebrated Architecture and Design Film Festival. The Municipal Art Society will also celebrate their 125th anniversary at the 2018 MAS Summit, highlighting themes crucial to their advocacy initiatives. UN-Habitat will bookend the festival with a World Habitat Day conference on October 1 and a World Cities Day conference on October 31.
Opportunities for touring NYC’s architecture go beyond Building of the Day. Open House New York Weekend will provide unparalleled access to sites across the city. Don’t miss tours by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Judd Foundation, Historic House Trust of NYC, the South Street Seaport Museum, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and more. And to see the city from the water’s edge, join Classic Harbor Line, in partnership with AIA New York, for daily architecture boat tours.
Archtober invites audiences of all ages to celebrate the impact of design. This year, the festival offers an expanded offering of k-12 and family programming, from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s Teen Design Fair, to Amazing Architecture for Kids at the Museum at Eldridge Street, and a bilingual K-12 Architecture Design Workshop hosted by the Queens Foundation for Architecture. The Center for Architecture has also grown their k-12 offerings for the month, which will include a Build a LEGO City Family Day, a Build and Wear Halloween Costume workshop, and the first-ever family-oriented Building of the Day tour of the Helen Hayes Theater by the Rockwell Group. The Uni Project, a non-profit that creates pop-up learning environments for children in public spaces, has joined as a partner for 2018, activating sites across the city for children to learn how to draw architecture and build.
The Center for Architecture will also host a series of festive, Archtober-branded events for all. During Pumpkitecture, 20 architecture firms will carve pumpkins into architectural works to win the Pritzkerpumpkin. At Archtober Trivia Night, experts will try to stump the audience with questions about architecture, design, and NYC’s built environment. Prizes and bragging rights abound!
Visit Archtober.org to see the full lineup of events.