Renowned Dutch Designer Petra Blaisse to Give Free Public Talk in Third Annual Glimcher Lecture

Appearance Is Part of Extreme Textiles Lecture Series

This year’s DeeDee and Herb Glimcher Lecture will feature renowned Dutch designer Petra Blaisse on Tuesday, May 2 at 7 pm in the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater, 1871 N. High Street. Blaisse will discuss her international projects—distinctive for interweaving architecture, textiles, interior décor, and landscape design in to dramatic, cohesive environments. Known for her bold work in multiple arenas, from theater curtains to gardens to elements of Prada’s flagship New York store (designed by Rem Koolhaas), Blaisse is the founder of Inside Outside, a design studio based in Amsterdam. This talk is free and open to the public.

Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin notes, “I have followed Petra’s work with keen interest for many years, and it is a special honor to bring her to the Wexner Center as this year’s Glimcher Lecturer. Not only will her talk enhance the center’s installation of Extreme Textiles, but her presence in Columbus for the first time brings a unique design talent into our midst— one whose reputation for ingenious approaches to interior and landscape design continues to grow internationally.”

Blaisse made her debut as a designer in 1987, when Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) landed a commission to build the Netherlands Dance Theater in The Hague. Her projects for OMA also included layered curtain walls for the Mick Jagger Centre concert hall in London, the poured floors for the Lille Grand Palais, and Prada New York’s curtain walls. Her current projects include the Dutch Embassy in Berlin, the Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal (also designed by Koohlaas), the Hackney Empire Theatre in London, and the Seattle Public Library (designed by Koolhaas), for which she designed a series of “garden carpets.” For more information on Blaisse and her work, click to www.insideoutside.nl.

This event is presented with support from the DeeDee and Herb Glimcher Program Fund, which supports an annual lecture by a distinguished speaker in the fields of art and architecture. The fund was created through the generosity of the Glimcher family in order to provide lasting opportunities for Wexner Center patrons to further enhance their understanding of the art and architecture of our time. Past Glimcher lectures were given by architect Zaha Hadid and landscape architect Walter Hood.

This event also is the second talk in the Extreme Textiles lecture series; the full schedule is below.

EXTREME TEXTILES LECTURE SERIES

Blaisse’s talk is part of a series of lectures featuring designers and architects from around the world as well as faculty members from Ohio State, held in conjunction with the exhibition Extreme Textiles, now on view in the Wexner Center galleries. Unless otherwise noted, all lectures take place in the Wexner Center Film/Video Theater; admission to all lectures is free.

• Sheila Kennedy: After Effects Thursday, April 27 / 5:30 pm (Wexner Center Performance Space)

A founding partner of Kennedy & Violich Architecture in Boston, Kennedy discusses the ways contemporary digital technologies and materials intertwine across the fields of electronics, architecture, and material design. Kennedy’s Zip Wall is featured in Extreme Textiles.

• Petra Blaisse Tuesday, May 2 / 7 pm (see page 1 for details)

• Maggie Orth: The Art and Technology of Electronic Textiles Thursday, May 11 / 4:30 pm Founder of International Fashion Machines, Inc. in Seattle, Orth discusses her art and design work in electronic textiles and the relationship between computation, material making, and traditional artistic and design practices. Her interactive Fuzzy Light Wall and Leaping Lines Electric Plaid panel are on view in Extreme Textiles.

• Kathryn Jakes: Extreme Textiles in Our Ordinary Lives Thursday, May 18 / 4:30 pm Jakes, an Ohio State Professor of Textile and Fiber Science in the Department of Consumer Sciences, will talk about how the textiles we use today include many of the high-performance materials originally created for special applications such as the space program. Many items will be on display for the audience to see and touch.

• Peter Testa and Devyn Weiser: Future Work Thursday, May 25 / 4:30 pm Testa and Weiser, design principals with TESTA Architecture/Design in Los Angeles, discuss the application of high-tech, fiber-based composites—materials that will replace steel in the coming decades— in architecture and construction. Their Carbon Tower Prototype, the first all-composite high-rise, and developed with the engineering firm ARUP, is featured in Extreme Textiles.

SERIES SUPPORT

Major support for the Extreme Textiles Lecture Series is generously provided by T.W. Ruff, Honda of America Mfg., Inc., Cityspace, and Infiniti of Columbus. The lecture series is cosponsored by Ohio State’s Knowlton School of Architecture.