This November on design & architecture streamer Shelter, uncover the hidden jewel within the Alberta prairies that would launch a bold vision for modern Canadian design, and watch an urban square at the world’s biggest arts fair come to life through collective action & design.
Arthur Erickson’s Dyde House
(55 mins) Canada 2023
November 4
When still a young and inexperienced architect, Arthur Erickson’s career was thrown a major opportunity in 1959 by Edmonton lawyer, academic, war hero and arts patron Henry Alexander Dyde and his wife Dorothy; who had purchased a piece of aspen parkland just outside the city with the intention of creating a cutting-edge retreat while preserving the natural surrounds. The couple allowed Erickson to explore and experiment with his groundbreaking visions in modern design, which stood in stark contrast to the Canadian architectural style of the time. Erickson’s design for the small but remarkable home eschewed traditional brick or timber construction, opting instead for stacked cinder blocks, clean lines, and an elegant symmetry that weaves seamlessly into the landscape and became a groundbreaking early translation of indoor-outdoor living. Yet this futuristic design would remain hidden from public view for decades. The couple had one key caveat for Erickson – the home was a secret, not to be published or promoted. And while the public eye wouldn’t discover Dyde House for another five decades, it would form the genesis of Erickson’s style. His early experiments here would have a huge effect on the major scale works and designs of his latter career, such as Simon Fraser University or Vancouver’s Robson Square. Rediscovered in 2016 by a group of architects, Dyde House remains a hidden treasure in dire need of repair, but still rich in the architectural language that defined a career; and appears to be finally ready to be revealed to the rest of the world.
W.I.S.H.?
(55 mins) Spain 2021
18 November
Why would an architect whose studio focuses on collective architecture, the reuse of materials, occupation strategies and urban intervention participate in Art Basel: the world’s highest-selling international contemporary art fair? Follow Santiago Cirugeda and his studio Recetas Urbanas (Urban Recipes) as they recruit the ideas and hands of local volunteers to hammer, drill, saw, and create Project Basilea; a large-scale multi-use civic structure and immersive art installation in Basel’s central Messeplatz Square. And once the structure is built, the decisions of what to do with it, where to keep it and its overall purpose falls to those who worked on it: looking to give residents a chance to determine how they see Basel as an urban environment, reflect on the city’s possibilities and the explore the significance of truly sharing urban space. But does applying this radical methodology in Switzerland, one of the world’s richest countries, make any sense? And just how does a collective and living art installation like Project Basilea gel with the peak of art sales being exchanged next door?
Meet the personalities behind these vastly different sides of the art and design world brought together at Art Basel in W.I.S.H.? – and see if Cirugeda’s bold ploy can shake up the status quo of the high-end contemporary art market.
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