Elena Manferdini + Jasmine Benyamin: Full Spectrum: Colour in Contemporary Architecture

Full Spectrum: Colour in Contemporary Architecture edited by Elena Manferdini and Jasmine Benyamin
Published by RIBA

Color is architecture’s sharpest tool in the box. It has indexed everything from the feminine, cosmetic, and vulgar to the pure, intrinsic, and embodied. Attitudes to color are constantly shifting. They have played a central role in the history of architecture: from the polychromy of the ancients to the great white interiors of high modernism; the figurative flourishes of postmodernism to the embodied sublime of contemporary building systems and facades.

In contemporary architecture, color has emerged as a powerful mode of working and an impactful political proposition. The second digital age has ushered paradigmatic shifts in how architects engage it. Employing the full spectrum of color requires a projective mode of action—one that anticipates nascent futures. It aids in the democratization of visual culture, opening the field to enable a multiplicity of identities by introducing new references and embracing new voices. This volume explores the operative role of color in current practice by proffering visions not of idealized other worlds, but rather radical reimaginings of our present one.

Elena Manferdini is the principal and owner of Atelier Manferdini in Los Angeles and Graduate Programs Chair at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc). With a body of work that spans public art, architecture, and industrial design, her eponymous Atelier has created work that uplifts the human spirit. Her design is known for its vibrant colors, meaningful narratives and its high attention to novel materials and craft. Manferdini has more than 20 years of professional experience and she is a leading voice in contemporary design culture and education. In 2019, Manferdini was honored with the ICON Award as part of the LA Design Festival, which is a prize that recognizes iconic women who have made an indelible mark on Los Angeles, culture, and society in general through their work, character, and creative leadership.

Jasmine Benyamin is a historian, theorist, and critic with more than 25 years of combined professional and academic experience in the US and UK. She was previously Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning and currently serves as guest lecturer at University of Southern California (USC). A recipient of numerous awards, her recent interdisciplinary research addresses architectural manifestations in art practice and popular culture, with a particular focus on film and photography. She holds bachelor’s degrees in architecture and French literature from Columbia University, a Master of Architecture degree from Yale University and a PhD from Princeton University. In addition to editing and translating several books on architecture, her essays and reviews have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and anthologies. Her most recent book, entitled MASTERcrit, is forthcoming with ORO Editions.

Panel discussion participants:

Courtney Coffman is Manager of Lectures and Publications at Princeton University’s School of Architecture. She has served as a content and copy editor for various architectural publications and monographs. Her own writings explore the visual culture and relational aesthetics of contemporary architecture and design alongside alternative histories and popular taste.

Javier Gonzalez Rivero is a Spanish Architect with more than 15 years of international working experience. He holds a master’s degree in advanced architecture from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona. Javier is one of the Managing Partners from 100architects, a pioneering firm based in Shanghai, which was born with the mission of improving the public realm in cities, and the experiences of its citizens.

Marcelyn Gow is a partner at servo los angeles, a design collaborative focused on the intersection of architectural ecologies and material practices that engage multiple environmental histories and possible futures. Gow is an Undergraduate Programs Chair, and design, history-theory faculty at SCI-Arc where she also teaches in the postgraduate Design Theory & Pedagogy program. Gow’s doctoral dissertation Invisible Environment: Art, Architecture and a Systems Aesthetic explores the relationship between aesthetic research and technological innovation in the context of collaborative practices.

Damjan Jovanovic is Co-Founder of the Los Angeles based game design studio Lifeforms.io and faculty at SCI-Arc. He is an artist and designer working at the intersection of video games, artificial intelligence, and architecture. Damjan's work has been exhibited internationally, and his writings on design, games, and worldmaking have been featured in a range of respected publications. He completed his post-graduate Master of Arts in Architecture degree at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2014, where he afterwards served as design faculty.

Zeina Koreitem is founding partner, with John May, of MILLIØNS, a Los Angeles-based design practice. She is design faculty at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. Previously she has held positions as Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and taught at the University of Toronto and USC School of Architecture. Koreitem has previously worked in the offices of Dominique Perrault Architecture in Paris, and Pritzker winners RCR Arquitectes in Olot, Spain. Her writings on computational color, computer graphics, and communality have been published in Project Journal, e-flux, and Harvard Design Magazine. Koreitem holds a B.Arch from the American University of Beirut, where she received the AREEN Project Award of Excellence in Architecture, and the Outstanding Creative Achievement Award; an M.Arch 2 from the University of Toronto; and an MDes in Design Computation from Harvard GSD, where she received the Daniel L. Schodek Award for Technology.

Carolyn L. Kane is the author of Electrographic Architecture: New York Color, Las Vegas Light, and America's White Imaginary (U of California P, 2023); High-Tech Trash: Glitch Noise and Aesthetic Failure (U of California P, 2019); and Chromatic Algorithms: Synthetic Colour, Computer Art, and Aesthetics after Code (U of Chicago P 2014).

Florencia Pita is a partner and founder of Florencia Pita & Co, a design and research collaborative based in Los Angeles. She is also principal of FPmod. Pita graduated in 1998 from the National University of Rosario in Argentina, with a licensure degree. In 1999 she was awarded the 2000 Fulbright-Fondo Nacional de las Artes Scholarship to pursue studies at Columbia University, and in 2001 she received her master’s degree from the MSAAD Program at Columbia University. Pita's work experience includes the offices of Greg Lynn FORM in Los Angeles, Eisenman Architects in New York City and Asymptote in New York City. Her independent projects have been part of several museum collections, such as MoMA, MAK Vienna, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and have been recognized through publications and awards. She currently teaches Design Studios and Visual Studies courses at the SCI-Arc and was recently appointed Graduate Thesis Coordinator.

Paulette Singley is a Professor of Architecture at Woodbury University. She served as the Adele Chatfield-Taylor Rome Prize fellow at the American Academy in Rome during Spring of 2021, authored How to Read Architecture: An Introduction to Interpreting the Built Environment (Routledge, 2019), co-edited Eating Architecture (MIT Press, 2006), and co-edited Architecture: In Fashion (Princeton Architectural Press, 1994).

Mimi Zeiger is a Los Angeles-based critic, editor, and curator. She was co-curator of the U.S. Pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale and the 2020-2021 cycle of Exhibit Columbus. Zeiger is visiting faculty at SCI-Arc.