Lebbeus Woods was a powerful presence in New York City and in the world of architectural thinking and expression. It’s still unsettling to think he is no longer here to push and provoke the world of architecture towards a more thoughtful and challenging practice. Though his ethical voice (his projects and writing can still be explored at lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com) and the demanding worlds he created inside his drawings will no longer confront the major issues of the day we still have his drawings to remind us of his thinking and vision. The first major retrospective of Woods career will open at the Drawing Center in New York on April 16, 2014 and was organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is currently in view at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (through March 2, 2014). 

To accompany the exhibit Lebbeus Woods: Architect, the Drawing Center will publish a 160 catalogue in their Drawing Papers series that will include essays by Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher and Joseph Becker, as well as an introduction by Brett Littman.

Photon Kite. (Copyright Estate of Lebbeus Woods)

The Drawing Center will also host a conversation between curator Florence Ostende and artist Franz Erhard Walther on aesthetics, space, and architecture as part of the ART2 program on Friday, April 18 at 6:30 and an evening screening of the film Lebbeus Woods and Steven Holl: The Practice of Architecture followed by a conversation between architect Steven Holl and producer Michael Blackwood (TBA). It will certainly be the most exciting exhibition on the Spring architecture calendar and The Architect’s Newspaper is proud to be the media sponsor.