Mark Wigley

Mark Antony Wigley is a New Zealand-born architect, author, and (since 2004) Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York, United States.

Life

Wigley received both his Bachelor of Architecture (1979) and Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Mike Austin was his doctoral supervisor. Wigley left Auckland in 1986 and taught at Princeton University, from 1987 to 1999, serving also as the director of Graduate Studies at Princeton’s School of Architecture.

In 1988, Wigley co-curated with Philip Johnson the MoMA exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture. The exhibition featured the works of seven architects, who were already well-known at the time for a style of architecture that involved in various ways "deconstructing" conventional notions of architectural convention: Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas and Coop Himmelb(l)au. The curators linked the works to the philosophical notion of Deconstruction, as espoused by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, as well as the art-architectural historical precedent of Russian constructivism, and several works from this period were displayed in the exhibition. However, of the architects only Eisenman and Tschumi acknowledged the connection to Derrida and only Hadid to Constructivism.

Volume Magazine

In 2005, Wigley founded Volume Magazine together with Rem Koolhaas and Ole Bouman. A collaborative project by Archis (Amsterdam), AMO Rotterdam and C-lab (Columbia University NY), Volume Magazine is an experimental think tank focusing on the process of spatial and cultural reflexivity. The magazine aims to explore "beyond architecture’s definition of 'making buildings'" by presenting global views on architecture and design, broader attitudes to social structures and created environments; and embodies progressive journalism.

Created and founded in collaboration with Brett Steele the Institute of Failure; essentially an academic institution for the instruction and theory of failure (as opposed to success).

Awards

Wigley was awarded the Resident Fellowship, Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism, 1989; International Committee of Architectural Critics (C.I.C.A.) Triennial Award for Architectural Criticism, 1990; and the Graham Foundation Grant, 1997.

Personal life

Mark Wigley is married to architecture historian Beatriz Colomina.

Selection of writings

• "The Activist Drawing: Situationist Architectures From Constant's New Babylon to Beyond" (2001).
• Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire, Rotterdam, 010 Publishers, 1998.
• White walls, Designer Dresses: The fashioning of modern architecture, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1995.
• The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1993.
• (with Philip Johnson) Deconstructivist Architecture, MoMA, New York, Little, Brown/New York Graphic Society Books, 1988.
• (edited with Catherine deZegher and Catherine de Zegher) The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationist Architectures from Constant's New Babylon to Beyond, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 2001.

References

External links

• Hammer Conversation with Mark Wigley and Wolfgang Tillmans – September 17, 2006
• Columbia University faculty Biography
• Volume Magazine
• Interview Mark Wigley

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Name	Wigley, Mark
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