Hollwich’s Smog-Fighting Star Wins MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program
NEW YORK--The firm of Matthias Hollwich, Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, has won MoMA PS1's Young Architects' Program. The program has served as a launching pad for younger firms, offering the MoMA PS1 courtyard as a testing ground for new formal and programmatic strategies.
Hollwich--with a team of current and former PennDesign architecture students and talent at HollwichKushner (HWKN), the New York City based architecture and concept design firm which he co-founded--dreamed up a bold starburst design that treats air pollutants through high-tech fabric.
The winning design, Wendy, utilizes thousands of yards of fabric treated with Titania nanoparticles from the British designer Helen Storey and scientist Tony Ryan of Catalytic Clothing. The office estimates that Wendy's air treatment will be equivalent to removing 260 cars from the road, offering a direct impact on Queens neighborhood where it will be installed in June. All the materials can be disassembled and reused.
"There were several excellent proposals among this year's finalists for the Young Architect's Program," said Peter Reed, G'83, PhD'89, Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at MoMA and a member of the jury.
"HWKN's winning proposal promises to satisfy all the demands inherent in the program including a powerful iconic image for MoMA PS1's popular Warm-Up concerts; an intriguing application of innovative materials that address environmental issues; and quick and relatively easy construction in keeping with the ephemeral nature of the low-budget project. In other words, HWKN has designed a brilliant project for maximum impact with minimal means."
Hollwich said the design does not play the typical architecture game of ecological apology.
"The genesis of Wendy began years ago, when we were collectively exploring prototypes in studio at Penn, visually, critically, architecturally and experientially," said Hollwich. "We were thinking about how to take design emotionally home-which is what Wendy is all about."
Hollwich also noted contributions from PennDesign talent. "When we counted, we realized that 50 percent of the people who have worked on Wendy were from UPenn-active and past students. Without UPenn, we would have not been able to pull this off."
Hollwich and partner Marc Kushner, BA'99, were supported by Project Architect Robert May, MArch'08 along with Dwight Engel, MArch'10, Michael Golden, MArch'11, Adam Hostetler, MArch'10, David Lee, MArch'03, Bradley Schnell, MArch'11 and Brett Wiemann, MArch'11 as well as current Master of Architecture Candidates Gregory Knobloch, MArch/ GIS'12, Andreas Kostopoulos, MArch'13, Evan Litvin, IPD/MArch'12 and Andreas Tjeldflatt, MArch'12.
"Matthias is amazing as a design studio instructor here and much sought after by our students. We are very excited for him and so pleased to celebrate all the young talent behind this win," said Marilyn Jordan Taylor, Dean of PennDesign.
To engage the crowds at PS1's popular Summer Warm Up series, Wendy's iconic star-shape also features programmatic zones with water cannons, an elevated DJ nook and wading and misting zones.
"The jury was greeted with a particularly impressive group of proposals this year, all of which represented months of sustained research into problems both specific to a summer installation at MoMA PS1 and to new directions for architecture in terms of material research, ecological responses, and recyclability," said Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA.
Simon Kim, Assistant Professor in Architecture at PennDesign, was also among the five finalist teams. An exhibition of the five finalists' proposed projects will be on view at MoMA over the summer.
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About HWKN
HWKN (Hollwich Kushner) is a New York based group of architects, designers, social media experts and inventors operating within the field of architecture, urbanism, branding, digital media, and development. The office is currently involved in a diverse range of projects of all scales. HWKN architecture emerges out of an optimistic design approach, embracing all facets of contemporary culture to enrich and reinvent our profession. Projects act as incubators that leverage pop culture, social media, client needs, and branding to repurpose architectural traditions. Projects include co-founding Architizer, the world largest social media site for architecture, BOOM, a progressive community for aging, and most recently J2, the tallest high-rise building in New Jersey slated for construction in 2013. HWKN is putting its curiosity to work by making the impossible possible. See more under: www.hwkn.com
Young Architects Program
This year marks the 15th summer that MoMA PS1 has hosted a combined architectural installation and music series in its outdoor galleries, though it is only the 13th year of the Young Architects Program, which began in 2000. The inaugural project was an architecturally based installation in 1998 by an Austrian artist collective, Gelatin. In 1999, Philip Johnson's DJ Pavilion celebrated the historic affiliation of MoMA PS1 and MoMA. The previous winners of the Young Architects Program are SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli (2000), ROY (2001), William E. Massie (2002), Tom Wiscombe / EMERGENT (2003), nARCHITECTS (2004), Xefirotarch (2005), OBRA (2006), Ball-Nogues (2007), WORKac (2008), MOS (2009), Solid Objectives - Idenburg Liu (2010), and Interboro Partners (2011). In 2011, MoMA and MoMA PS1 have partnered with the National Museum of XXI Century Arts (MAXXI) in Rome, and with CONSTRUCTO in Chile to create international editions of the Young Architects Program.
University of Pennsylvania School of Design
The University of Pennsylvania's School of Design (PennDesign) is an inventive place of learning, where the fields of architecture, planning, preservation, landscape and fine arts come together. Formerly known as the Graduate School of Fine Arts, the school is committed to design that is creative in nature and transformative in impact. Faculty and students seek to recast the distinction between theory and practice, expand knowledge and invention through research and contribute works of value and beauty. PennDesign offers a number of dual degrees and certificate programs that foster inquiry and experimentation in a collaborative environment. For more information, please visit www.design.upenn.edu.
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