Städelschule Architecture Class
Dean's Honorary Lecture
Beatriz Colomina: The Total Interior: Playboy Architecture 1953–1979
Donnerstag, 4. Juli 2013, 19:30 Uhr, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Schaumainkai 43

The Dean’s Honorary Lecture 2013 is delivered by world-renowned architectural historian and theorist Beatriz Colomina, professor in History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University School of Architecture, where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies, Ph.D. Program as well as the founding Director of the Program in Media and Modernity.

Colomina has taught at Princeton since 1988. Her 'Program in Media and Modernity' is a graduate programme that promotes the interdisciplinary study of forms of culture that came to prominence during the last century and looks at the interplay between culture and technology. In 2006-2007 she curated, with a group of Princeton Ph.D. students, the exhibition “Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X” at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. The exhibition has also been shown at, amongst other places, the Museum of Design of Barcelona, the Colegio de Arquitectos de Murcia and the NAI Maastricht . An exhibition catalog has appeared from ACTAR. Colomina has written extensively on questions of architecture and media. Her books include Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (The MIT Press, 1994); Domesticity at War (ACTAR and MIT Press, 2007); Sexuality and Space (Princeton Architectural Press, 1992); and Architectureproduction (Princeton Architectural Press, 1988). Colomina has written numerous other publications and presented lectures throughout the world.

Her lecture on 'The Total Interior' frames how sex, architecture and design have been inextricably intertwined in the pages of Playboy magazine. Sexual fantasies and architectural fantasies were inseparable. Architecture turned out to be more seductive than the playmates; it was the ultimate playmate. It could be argued that, with its massive global circulation and sexualization of architecture, Playboy had more influence on the dissemination of modern design than professional magazines, interiors magazines, and even institutions like the Museum of Modern Art.

Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt.