Call for Design Proposals: CURTAINS

Sponsor: Center for American Architecture and Design, School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin

Type: Call for Proposals: open, international
Location: Austin, Texas
Eligibility: open to professionals and students
Fees:
Early Registration-US$35
Regular Registration-US$50
Timetable:
14 February 2013 – Registration deadline
14 March 2013 – Submission deadline
Jury:

Kevin Alter, University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture

Michael Benedikt, University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture

Petra Blaisse, Inside-Outside, Amsterdam

Andrée Bober, Director, University of Texas Landmarks

Craig Dykers, Snohetta, New York City

Beili Liu, University of Texas at Austin, College of Fine Arts

Peter Waldman, University of Virginia School of Architecture

Design challenge:

CURTAINS is a multi-site installation, exhibition, and publication event designed to explore the use of fabrics in contemporary art and architecture—not in the form of rigid tensile structures, nor in the form of cladding or upholstery, but in their more relaxed, natural forms: curtains associated with windows, but also defining and activating spaces indoors and out, billowing overhead as canopies, catching and using wind like sails, creating shade, diffusing light, holding color in their folds, filtering views, absorbing sound, showing the wind, and making theater of the everyday.

This is an invitation to artists and architects to design and propose installations that demonstrate the functional, transformative, and evocative powers of architecturally-scaled curtains and affiliated fabric objects. These might be located inside a building or outside, between several, or in a larger, more open landscape (Christo’s Running Fence and The Gates come to mind). They might use traditional or yet-unknown kinds of fabrics; they might use traditional or yet-unknown forms of rigging. They might be temporary and ephemeral by design, or thought of as permanent and maintained. For more information about how to submit proposals, visithttp://soa.utexas.edu/caad/curtains/index.html 

The CURTAINS event itself is scheduled for October 18, 2013, at the University of Texas at Austin, with keynote addresses by Christo and Petra Blaisse.

For more information, go to: