Masonry Rethought

Earlier today, the CBS News Sunday Morning show reported on the "Masonry Variations" exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, the impetus and curator of the exhibit, and CBS's Bob Orr took the viewer through the four pieces in display:

Stone, fellow Chicago architect Jeanne Gang and stone mason Matthew Stokes Redabaugh's hung marble "shower curtain",

Brick, Houston architect Carlos Jimenez and mason J. Keith Behrens' brick and steel gyroscope,

Terrazzo, California architect Julie Eizenberg and terrazzo craftsman Mike Menegazzi's stone and cement wave,

Concrete Block, New York architect Winka Dubbeldam and expert mason Robert Mion Jr.'s organic sculptures.


Stone

Each piece uses its material of choice to rethink their common applications. For example, Gang and Redabaugh take a material typically laid flat in compression or hung as cladding and cut it thinly and place it in tension to explore alternative ways of using and responding to marble. The translucency of it is striking, something not usually perceived in marble counter tops or building fronts.

The exhibition's inclusion on the Morning show is evidence of architecture's growing popularity with the public, but it inadvertently raises questions about architecture's presentation. As most people experience buildings through print and images on the internet, seeing the moving parts of Jimenez and Behrens' piece on television, for example, mediates between architecture's typical 2d exposure and the ideal of experiencing an exhibit, building or place first-hand.