Preston Scott Cohen is a professor of Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). [1] In 2004, he established a partnership with two registered architects, Amit Nemlich and Gilles Quintal, and became the Design Principal of Preston Scott Cohen, Inc. based in Central Square Cambridge, Massachusetts. [2] Preston Scott Cohen, Inc. is renowned for the design of cultural, educational, commercial buildings and urban design projects around the world. Projects include the Sarmiento Performing Arts Center in Bogota, Colombia; a new building for Taubman College at the University of Michigan; the Taiyuan Museum of Art in Taiyuan, China; the Datong City Library; the Amir Building, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; and the Goldman Sachs Canopy in New York. The firm is also well known for non-profit projects including the Cape Rep Theater, Temple Beth El in Springfield, MA, and the Detroit Chabad. Cohen has received numerous honors including induction as an academician at the National Academy of Art, five Progressive Architecture Awards, first prizes for seven international competitions and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Cohen is the author of Lightfall (Skira Rizzoli, 2016), The Return of Nature (2015), Contested Symmetries (2001), and numerous theoretical essays on architecture. His work has been widely exhibited and is held in numerous museum collections.
Cohen received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1982 and 1983 (respectively). In 1985, he received his Master of Architecture degree from the Harvard GSD. Gaining professorship there in 2003, he also served as the Director of the Architecture degree program. In 2008, he was appointed Chair of the GSD, [3] a position held previously by Rafael Moneo, Mack Scogin, Henry N. Cobb and Walter Gropius. [4]
Cohen's design approach is based on the projective geometry of the 17th century, but he shows a novel application by using oblique projections. This approach is supported by computer modelling. The calculations are rapid, sometimes preprogrammed, and the transformation from two dimensions to three is a complex procedure. Geometry is returned to its independent status after having served primarily the needs of technology during the industrialization of the West. It is no longer a tool for the production of machinery.
In the case of the Wu House, renderings of which have been collected by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, [5] the curves are the intersections of cylindrical volumes. The spaces are three-dimensional images of geometrical operations. The vitality of the intersection lines reflects an idea of design which is far from the preconceived rules of the aesthetics that usually arise from these geometric forms.
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Cohen is the winner of the Herta and Paul Amir Competition [6] (awarded January, 2004) to design a new building for the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (estimated $45 million budget to build flexible gallery spaces, concessions, as well as the restoration of labs and offices). [7] It is noted for its hyperboloid form, and is to be finished with Israeli stone. [8] Renderings of the project were shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in a 2006-2007 exhibition entitled Skin + Bones: parallel practices in fashion and architecture. [9]
Richard Meier is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several iconic buildings including the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and San Jose City Hall.
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Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is a graduate school of design at Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the GSD offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, urban design, real estate, design engineering, and design studies.
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Deconstructivism is a movement of postmodern architecture which appeared in the 1980s. It gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building, commonly characterised by an absence of obvious harmony, continuity, or symmetry. Its name is a portmanteau of Constructivism and "Deconstruction", a form of semiotic analysis developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Architects whose work is often described as deconstructivist include Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and Coop Himmelb(l)au.
Eric Owen Moss practices architecture with his eponymously named LA-based firm founded in 1973.
Maya Cohen Levy, also known as Maya Cohen-Levy, is an Israeli painter and sculptor.
Pinchas Cohen Gan is an Israeli painter and mixed-media artist. He was awarded the Sandberg Prize (1979), the Culture and Sport Ministry's prize for his life's work (2005), and the Israel Prize in Art (2008).
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Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv is an organization concerned with Bauhaus architecture and design in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel. Buildings designed in the International Style, commonly known as Bauhaus, comprise most of the center of Tel Aviv known as The White City. The vision behind the Center is to raise awareness of the Bauhaus heritage and be part of the cultural and artistic development in Tel Aviv.
Wesley Jones is an American architect, educator and author. Founding partner of Holt Hinshaw Pfau Jones, in 1987 and then Jones, Partners: Architecture in 1993, Jones is a leading architectural voice of his generation, advocating for a continuing appreciation of the physical side of technology within a world increasingly enamored of the virtual. For most of his career this has taken the form of an overt fascination with mechanical expression, both static and moving, and his designs have been celebrated for their "engaging operability” and humor. In his early writings he focused on making the case for the appropriateness of mechanical form in architecture, but his later essays have also taken on more fundamental disciplinary questions, particularly with respect to the growing hegemony of digital design.
Mirit Cohen was a Russian-born Israeli sculptor and painter. Cohen resided in New York City from 1975. In 1990, she committed suicide.
Nahum Zolotov was an Israeli architect and a recipient of the Rokach Prize in 1961 and in 1973. He was a recipient of the Rechter Prize.
Moti Bodek is an Israeli architect, the owner of the firm Bodek Architects based in Tel Aviv, and a senior lecturer at the Architecture department in Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem.
Yaakov Rechter was an Israeli architect and an Israel Prize recipient.
Miki Kratsman is an Israeli photographer, photojournalist and activist.