Last Chance for Actions

Photo by Michelle Litvin

This Saturday, March 13th, will be your last chance to view the exhibit Actions: What you can do with the City. The exhibit has landed here at the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts after its debut at Montreal's Canadian Center for Architecture. Don't worry, the documentation is in English. Actually the exhibit consists of contributions, or "Actions", by artists, architects, designers, activists and others from all over the world.

The vast majority of the Actions work to make the city more humane, sometimes using grass-roots geurrilla urbanism such as activists dressed as city workers using a home-made stencil to paint bicycle symbols on heavily trafficked streets, thereby creating a bike lane. To balance out the exhibit, some actions actually work toward the opposite effect, anti-sitting Actions for example, placed on private property to prevent people from sitting on things. The photo below is an interesting dichotomy of the exhibit.

On the one hand, the Action works to overcome an anti-lying-down-device, the handrails along the bench, while the handrails, not part of the exhibit, work to prevent people from lying down. This resourceful individual's Action is not only functional but highly fashionable.

I found the exhibit entertaining, engaging and participatory. It's definitely something that generates a good amount of conversation afterward, such as, what to do with the exposed backs of street signs?

Sticker Graffiti by MELT

You only have four days left to see it and what better excuse than before and after a related lecture being held at The Graham Wednesday night (March 10th) at 6pm by Amy Franceschini called The Revolution Will Be Cultivated. Find out what she's all about here and here. Admission to both the exhibit and the lecture are free.

Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
Madlener House
4 West Burton Place
Chicago, IL 60610
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.
Free Admission.

More reviews:
Lauren Weinberg for Time Out Chicago
Jason Foumberg for New City
Ryan LaFollette for The Architect's Newspaper
Architect Magazine
Bert Stabler for Proximity Magazine

Palleroni Has Landed

And Delivered.

Last Tuesday night at the Graham Foundation, Sergio Palleroni lectured on his life's work with his program called the BaSiC Initiative. I knew a little bit about what he does from seeing it on the PBS series Design e2. None-the-less, he went into considerable detail on a number of projects and I was impressed by the depth, scope, and global reach of his work.

It all started nearly 3 decades ago when he decided to put his formal education to use by helping his people. After a brief stint building housing for the UN and World Bank, he struck out on his own.

Mr. Palleroni gave us a good impression of the poverty throughout the world and I gained an appreciation for the methods he was using to help them. He wasn't giving them fish, as most government entities do to house the poor, he was teaching them to fish. Which is probably the best way to reach out the vast number of people and communities that need help. During his lecture he casually mentioned a community he worked in of 1 million squatters. That resonated with me for a while and is still something I think about. A community of 1 million squatters. I'm so far removed from a situation like that I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like.

Teaching them how to build housing, schools, and libraries gives them a sense of empowerment and ownership over the land which in turn strengthens the community. Some even banded together to get loans and matching grants.

At some point during his presentation there was so much work I found it hard to believe that what he was showing was all his even with him presenting it. In speaking with him afterward I came to find out he had a family on top of it all. I asked him how he was able to complete projects on 5 continents (What, no Antarctica?) at the same time and raise a family.

By now, he is able to appoint students and research assistants he has known for a few years to lead projects. After a number of years of doing this those project managers and former students have gone on to start their own initiatives.

On balancing family life with professional, he humbly credited his wife for being understanding but admitted having her as a partner in the firm has helped. He used to bring his kids with him to locations around the world. But now that they're older they have to stay home to attend school.

Upon his departure I'm left with more questions: Is his Portland school initiative expandable to Chicago? What other programs like this can we create here in Chicago to address the specific needs of our poor communities? How can we address the social breakdown that seems to be a unique trait to poor communities in America and can architects design housing to facilitate the improvement of those social structures?

I want to thank Mr. Palleroni, who took time out of his busy schedule while in Chicago to speak with us. He mentioned the importance of sharing and distributing knowledge and in continuing that spirit he shared his slides with me so that I might composite his lecture with the audio recording I had thanks to the Graham Foundation. Accordingly, this lecture and workshop series couldn't have happened without Roberta Feldman of the City Design Center and the selfless contributions of the rag-tag group that makes up the partnership that is Converge:Exchange. Whether you missed it or have to see it again, please enjoy Sergio Palleroni: Affecting Lasting Change Through Design Build Activism.



Part 2
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Part 7

Palleroni Lecture Countdown

On the evening of October 20th, architect and activist Sergio Palleroni will present a lecture of his work and experiences at the Graham Foundation. It should pair well with the new exhibit opening that week at the Graham called Actions. More on that later.

When planning for this started, Mr. Palleroni's name sounded only vaguely familiar until I remembered seeing him featured on an episode of Design e2. One of the services his organization, BaSiC Initiative provides is teaching very poor communities how to build housing from materials available on the land. Often times these result in now forgotten methods of construction as was the case on the Design e2 episode when he taught a Native American community in Mexico how to build houses out of adobe brick. He thus not only provides what we would neatly categorize his housing as affordable, but he teaches communities how to build them for themselves, empowering them with skills they can pass on to future generations indefinitely.

As a sort of countdown to the event, I'll be writing a series of posts on the organizations involved with planning the lecture. Over the next three weeks, look for posts in the form of summaries or interviews or both about National Public Housing Museum, City Design Center, Graham Foundation, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, Converge:Exchange, ADPSR, LL Consulting, SHED Studio and Urban Habitat Chicago.

The lecture will be followed by a panelist discussion with a chance to ask questions. This is a rare opportunity and I, for one, am grateful for Mr. Palleroni donating his time like this to share his craft with us. The lecture starts at 6pm.