IoA Sliver Lecture - Jesse Reiser

At best, technology can deliver
conclusive solutions to trivial problems
of culture, while culture in its most
robust forms resists final capture by
technology. Technique is thus a way
of combating technological inertia:
it forms the essence of style. The
mark of a mature project in architecture
is characterized by the systematic
flouting of its founding principles.
Youthful reliance on the rigor of the
exact disciplines (i.e. mathematics,
engineering, computation) matures
into the ability to craft precise forms
of fiction; it is what separates an
architect’s use of geometry from that
of a mathematician, or the architect’s
use of forces from that of the
engineer. Maturity thus is a process
of becoming undisciplined. Reiser’s
Sliver lecture explores the groundbreaking
exo-skeleton O-14 tower in
Dubai by New York-based practice,
Reiser + Umemoto. Jesse Reiser will
give an account of the design’s
realization and present a manifesto
of sorts, as he delves into the complex
interrelationships this architectural
model weaves between technology,
expression and politics in the context
of the ‘nowhere place’ of the
global city.