ABSTRACT
In framing the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, entitled Reporting from the Front, Alejandro Aravena claims an urgency for architects' renewed on-the-ground engagement with the 'real'. One particular new drawing by Curtis would also in part inspire 3. C. City's triangular silhouette. As drawings were developed, Chip started his videos, visual mood-capsules of conversations. Convention City invited yet another set of exchanges, first around the well-known story of the project's design as part of its larger orchestration as a media and performance event, but soon it became more focused on a close examination of the model and the section. The question of the archive soon became central to the collaboration and overall arc of the project. The use of color in particular radicalized the seemingly studious redrawing, destabilizing the more familiar narratives of the practice and its work, and inviting instead a closer look at what we found were some of the more interesting aesthetic sensibilities running through the various projects across time.
