HTC Experiments

Priming this site for winter/spring writing – stay tuned

I’m happy to announce a new website davidgissen.org that will be the primary site for my work. This will take some of the pressure off htcexperiments to be a blog, portfolio, news site, etc. Lately, this blog has shifted from what I intended it to be: a showcase for boundary-pushing historical work by others, and [...]

Matthew Gandy’s new book – Urban Constellations – includes a section on emerging terms in urban studies (“Urban Lexicons”), including this short essay on subnature.

Melany Park and I talk about the subnatural – just published in SA, an intriguing, international architecture magazine from Singapore.

A short reflection on how to continue the concept of autonomy within an architecture engaged with nature – from Kerb 19, RMIT’s journal.* Thoughts on a Heap of Rubble [Kerb Journal, RMIT] *I could have titled this essay: “some of my closest friends are vitalistic animists, but the work still makes me cranky”.

This year I am co-teaching the survey course in the history of architecture. In a previous gig (long ago), I taught a survey of the intellectual history (otherwise known as “theory”) of architecture from the Old Testament through to late-modern architectural writing. I still find it easier to talk about ideas versus things, but the [...]

You can nerd-out on the recording (above) of the presentations at the recent event on the future of architectural history and theory at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. A terrific event, and it's amazing how quickly these things get posted. Coverage of the event can be found here: The event was organized by [...]

A great review of the exhibition by Alan Rapp

25 October 2011–1 April 2012 CCA, Montréal Canadian Centre for Architecture 1920, rue Baile, Montréal, Québec  Canada H3H 2S6 T 514 939 7026 media@cca.qc.ca Open on Wednesday–Sunday, 11 am–6 pm; Thursday, 11 am–9 pm cca.qc.ca/imperfecthealth The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Montréal presents Imperfect Health: the Medicalization of Architecture, on view in the main galleries from October [...]

Last night I thought I would attend Occupy Oakland’s general assembly, being held every night at 7pm at Frank Ogawa Square. I’ve had numerous debates with friends and family about the protests, their effectiveness, aims, their white, homogenous, demographic make-up, among numerous other things. Certainly, the aims of the movement were opaque to me, but [...]

Geoff Manaugh’s exhibition has received excellent coverage, including this recent review in Domus. Now the exhibition is being transformed into a book with Actar, and I’m thrilled that one of my contributions to the exhibition – the Florence image from Museums of the City – is front-and-center. In addition to this book project, I also [...]

Nicola Twilley interviews me about a little hobby of mine that turned into something far more serious; and things around here became a little stranger, when the article was picked up by The Atlantic.

I’ve added three essays to the side-bar at right. In all three I’m trying to shift contemporary discussions of landscape away from statistical (data-driven) ideas and more towards historical ones. 1. An afterword that appears in the new book Landform Building edited by Stan Allen and Marc McQuade 2. Another afterword for the latest issue [...]

I’m very happy to announce — and give a small preview of — my contribution to an upcoming exhibition curated by Geoff Manaugh for the Center for Art and Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art. Manaugh has developed the exhibition over the past two years, and it includes the work of architects, landscape architects, [...]

A fantastic month here for experiments in history and theory — very fortunate for the generous support this work has received and I am happy to relay some recent adventures: I recently returned from a trip to Malmo, Sweden for a series of lectures on nature, environment and history in architecture and landscape. One lecture [...]

As an enthusiast and collector of wine, it was a great pleasure to finally see the SFMOMA exhibition “How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now”, conceived by curator, historian, and critic, Henry Urbach and with the exhibition design and curatorial collaboration of Diller/Scofidio, and Renfro. I can’t remember the last time I’ve [...]

I’m impressed with two projects (one being built) in New York City that suggest less techno-scientific interpretations of material, visualization, and assemblage. The authors of these projects are new to me, but I think they relate to many of the attitudes I hoped to capture, historicize, and theorize in the Subnature book. We are intellectually [...]

For better or worse, this site continues to transform into more of a news site than a content-driven site (although news items often have commentary!). Having come clean, from now until the beginning of school next year I will participate in many excellent and (frankly) challenging projects and events. Here’s a sample of the more [...]

I just returned from beautiful Princeton University where I gave a lecture with Minsuk Cho of Mass Studies at the School of Architecture. The lectures were part of a series curated by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood – principals of Work AC architects and professors at the school. Within their lecture series Andraos and Wood [...]

Monday night, CCA will hold a mini-symposium for the recent Territory issue of AD; description of the event: TERRITORY: ARCHITECTURE BEYOND ENVIRONMENT COLLOQUIUM Monday, October 11, 7 pm CCA San Francisco campus Timken Lecture Hall 1111 Eighth Street (at 16th and Wisconsin) Participants will include Peter Anderson, Javier Arbona, Ila Berman, Nicholas de Monchaux, Nataly [...]