News, Oct 17, 2014
Exhibition by Thün and Velikov featured in Wall Street Journal

Exhibition by Thün and Velikov featured in Wall Street Journal

RVTR, an architecture firm composed of Taubman faculty, Geoffrey Thün and Kathy Velikov, along with Colin Ripley, launched a new exhibition on view at Yale University through November 20th. “Infra Eco Logi Urbanism” has been well-received, and can now add a review by Julie Iovine of the Wall Street Journal to its accolades. “City of the (Near) Future” highlights the project’s focus on the large-scale exploration of megaregions and megacities, and the redefinition of urban boundaries.


Yale School of Architecture

The proposals made by the show are many and varied, but always look for design possibilities hidden in problems of infrastructure. The overloaded traffic problem of the superhighway 401 is spun into a concept of overlaying “the current highway system, hogged by cars and trucks, with such other networks as cable optics, elevated rail, even water and waste conveyance.” Another proposal makes use of “orphaned parcels” of unused acreage around freeway loops and reconditions them as “the footings of supersize buildings straddling the highway.”

Ultimately, as Iovine notes, a key to the future of architecture is the importance of looking “at the world differently, seeing it as composed of networks and systems – the webs we weave – rather than studded with something so limited and finite as individual buildings.”

Visit the Wall Street Journal on-line to read the entire review.

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