SPOTTED (text from Gallery Label)
Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) UBS 12x12 Exhibition: March 2009
Curator: Julie Rodrigues Widholm
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An architect based in Chicago, Paul Preissner (American, b. 1974) is part of a generation of similarly minded architects-including Hernan Diaz-Alonso (Argentine, b. 1969), Jason Payne (American, b. 1970), and Tom Wiscombe (American, b. 1970)-who believe a unique visual identity is one of the most significant functions of architecture, an idea that departs from the traditional notion that "form follows function." These architects rely on a project's appearance and form to create a new type of interaction with the city that allows for architecture to serve one of its principal urban activities: as a backdrop for daily life. This distracted attention to architecture elevates the importance of external identity, resulting in renewed consideration of a building's visual qualities (or architectural effects), such as form, shape, window or graphic elevational patterns, and color. These effects produce an architecture that relates to people rather than a utilitarian purpose, allowing for a separation of form from function and obscuring the building's interior organizational structure with its exterior.
With the technique of "spots," Preissner has developed his own architectural vocabulary to engage this issue. He is creating a catalogue of architectural effects that can be selected, or bred, to create new visual effects. Preissner takes this concept of breeding from a similar phenomenon in the pet world in which dogs are bred to produce specific physical qualities-such as coat patterns, body shapes, and fur types-that have little to do with the historic behavioral characteristics of the individual breed.
Another important element of Preissner's practice is his interest in the role of drawing as the preferred medium to communicate a building's appearance in contrast to traditional technical renderings. Architects such as Peter Eisenman (American, b. 1932), Daniel Libeskind (American, b. 1946), and Bernard Tschumi (Swiss, b. 1944), have worked with drawings in an exploratory manner during the process of designing buildings as well as to communicate the spirit of a project. Preissner similarly uses digital technologies to create drawings, animations, and three-dimensional drawings that articulate his vision.
Preissner is the first architect to be included in the UBS 12 x 12: New Artists/New Work series. Specifically presented during Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, his work connects with Fuller's ideas about public space and the built environment.
The architect extends special thanks to Brendan Gibbons, Warren Weaver, and Inigo Manglano-Ovalle.
