exhibits archive
Perceiving Space : The Hal Box and Logan Wagner Collection of Mexican Architecture and Urban Design
Cuilapan Monastery, Oaxaca, Mexico, 16th Century
February 4, 2009 to August 14, 2009
Every summer from 1985 to 1996, with the assistance of volunteer teams from Earthwatch, W.L. Moody, Jr. Centennial Professor Emeritus in Architecture and former dean of the School of Architecture Hal Box, F.A.I.A., and Dr. Logan Wagner explored, photographed, measured and made scale drawings of over ninety town in Mexico; the collection of over 8,000 slides taken during this period was donated to the School of Architecture’s Visual Resources Collection (VRC).
The exhibit Perceiving Space: The Hal Box and Logan Wagner Collection of Mexican Architecture and Urban Design highlights a selection of images from a collection that documents communal open spaces built in Mexico from 2000 BC to the present, concentrating on the 16th and 17th century fusion of Mesoamerican and European architecture and town planning. Contained in the collection are images of sacred open spaces formed by ancient pyramids and the plazas, atrios, cloisters and towns' central plazas.
In 2006 the VRC and ARTstor, a digital library of nearly one million images, agreed to collaborate on a project to digitize and distribute images from the collection through the ARTstor Digital Library. With generous support from ARTstor, graduate student Kristina Kupferschmid cataloged and selected almost 6,000 images for digitization from January 2007 through September 2008. The Hal Box and Logan Wagner Collection of Mexican Architecture and Urban Design will be available in ARTstor in spring 2009 and as part of the VRC's online Image Collection.
Architecture in Mongolia Through the Ages
Yampai (a wall) before south gate at the Amarbayasgalant Monastery in Selenge (Michael Bricker)
September 15, 2008 to January 16, 2009
In 2006, graduate student Michael Bricker received the School of Architecture’s (SOA) Mebane Travel Grant to visit Mongolia to design an energy efficient home for a family in the community of Yeroo. Upon receiving funding from the SOA, Michael invited graduate student Ami Mehta to assist with the research and design of the proposed home. Together, Michael and Ami decided to expand the scope of the project to include two independent study courses to research Mongolian architectural history—namely the ger, Chinese Buddhist temples, and Soviet civic buildings—and to investigate the architectural consequences of a newly democratic, modern Mongolia. During their stay in Mongolia, Michael, Ami and Jacob Knight, a colleague working in the Peace Corps in Mongolia, documented the built environment and have contributed almost four hundred digital images, along with descriptive metadata, to the SOA Visual Resources Collection (VRC). The images in this exhibit represent a small sampling of images selected from the group that are available for use by the university community as part of the VRC's online Image Collection.
Landscape Architecture’s History: Marrying Research and Teaching through the Camera’s Eye
Donnell Garden, Sonoma, California. Photo by Mirka Beneš.
February 1, 2008 to August 15, 2008
During the course of her academic career, Professor Mirka Beneš has documented a wide range of landscapes and supporting materials such as rare prints, maps, drawings, and written documents. From Professor Beneš’s extensive slide collection, a group of almost 8,000 teaching slides—used in support of her two lecture courses in the history and theories of landscape architecture—were selected and, over the past 16 months, in collaboration with Professor Beneš, the slides have been cataloged and digitized by the School of Architecture’s Visual Resources Collection (VRC). The selection of images in this exhibit represent a small sampling of images selected from the group of almost 8,000 that are, due to the generosity of Professor Beneš, available for use by the university community as part of the VRC’s online Image Collection.
Mirka Beneš is Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin, which she joined in 2006. Her teaching covers the whole history of landscape architecture and gardens, and she publishes on Baroque Rome, Italian and French gardens, agrarian landscapes, and modernist landscape architecture. From 1988 to 2005, she taught at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, latterly as Associate Professor.
Images of India : Photography by Sarah Hill
Carrier Pigeon Cages, City Palace and Museum,
Udaipur, Rajasthan, 16th-18th century.
August 31, 2007 to January 7, 2008
Traveling throughout India for six weeks in summer 2006 with the Advanced Travel India Studio led by Lecturers Pankaj Gupta and Christine Mueller, Sarah Hill was provided with many opportunities to document the visually rich environment. The selection of images in this exhibit represents a small sampling of over 3700 digital images that are now part of the School of Architecture's Visual Resources Image Collection; the images will be available shortly for use by the University community for study, teaching, and research.
This project was supported in great part by a ~FAST Tex Grant from the University's Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment.
Frozen Notes : The Photography of Frederick R. Steiner
Rome, Italy, June 2000
January 24, 2007 to August 24, 2007
This exhibit features a selection of black and white photographs printed from 35mm Scala slides taken by the School of Architecture's Dean Frederick Steiner.
Regarding his photographic pursuits, Dean Steiner says, "I seldom think about taking pictures, it is something I just do. Through my camera, I am an observer of the contemporary urban condition. Mostly, I take pictures of buildings and landscapes. I suppose my pictures might be viewed as abbreviated forms of architecture."
Dean Steiner is the Henry M. Rockwell Chair in Architecture, University of Texas at Austin. During his tenure as a National Endowment for the Arts Prize Fellow in Rome in 1998, his love for photography was rekindled and he has been photographing ever since.
Through the Eyes of an Architect: Images from R. James Coote's Travels
Temple of the Four Winds at Castle Howard, Yorkshire, England
September 8, 2006 to January 12, 2007
Our current exhibit features digital prints from selected 35mm slides donated to the Visual Resources Collection (VRC) by Professor Emeritus R. James Coote. Along with almost two thousand slides from his personal collection, Professor Coote provided thorough descriptions of each image facilitating the creation of online catalog records; the entire donation is in the process of being digitized and will be available online for use by the University community.
From 1965-2000, Professor Emeritus Coote taught architectural design and architectural history courses to undergraduate and graduate students at The University of Texas at Austin.
Into The Light: A Sampler of Alternative Photographic Processes
cyanotype print by Anthony Maddaloni
February 1, 2006 to August 1, 2006
In this age of digital perfection, there is a growing body of artists returning to historical methods to hand-craft photographic images. Alternative photographic processes result in unique images; no two prints can ever be exactly alike. In this exhibit, three distinctly different processes are on view: pinhole prints and cameras, cyanotype prints, and polaroid manipulations.
The pinhole cameras were made by students of Lecturer Russell Krepart in conjunction with his vertical studio class in Fall 2005. All the prints were produced in the School of Architecture's Photo Union Darkroom. Darkoom membership is available to all currently enrolled architecture school students for a nominal fee. Membership includes free workshops covering such topics as Cyanotype, Polaroid transfer, and basic black and white printing.
Texas Architecture: A Visual History
Commercial buildings on 6th Street, Austin, Texas. Photograph by D. Blake Alexander.
October 1, 2005 to January 1, 2006
Texas Architecture: A Visual History showcases images selected from the D. Blake Alexander and Marian Davis slide collections held by the University of Texas Libraries Alexander Architectural Archive and the Visual Resources Collection (VRC), respectively. The collections are unique and valuable resources documenting architecture throughout Texas of both extant and razed buildings. The exhibit highlights turn-of-the-century commercial architecture on Congress Avenue and 6th Street with images taken in Austin in the late 1950s by the late Professor Davis, as well as images taken around Texas by Professor Emeritus D. Blake Alexander.
The VRC's exhibit complements the online exhibit by the same name funded by The University of Texas at Austin's UTOPIA initiative. UTOPIA projects are designed to open the University's doors of knowledge, research, and information to the public. The online exhibit provides an historical overview of the development of the built environment in Texas in addition to providing access to 3,971 digitized images documenting Texas architecture. Visit the online version of Texas Architecture: A Visual History.
Lensless Photography: The Art of the Pinhole
photo by Sarah Hill
January 1, 2005 to August 1, 2005
Lensless Photography: The Art of the Pinhole showcases black and white pinhole photographs taken by students in Lecturer Russell Krepart's fall 2004 Vertical Studio. Various locations, from sites in Marfa, Texas, to a bathroom in Sutton Hall provided a variety of lighting conditions challenging the students to experiment with pinhole technology and film exposure times. The photos were printed in the School of Architecture's Photo Union Darkroom by class participants. The pinhole cameras constructed by the students are also displayed.
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