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Stories Artists Tell Us
November 25, 2023 @ 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Free
Sat 25 Nov 2023 | 4.30 pm | City Hall Wing, Level B1, The Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium | Free, registration required: https://bit.ly/TropicalRichardHassell
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In 1968, the renowned Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi unveiled her “crystal easels,” a groundbreaking design approach for displaying paintings at the São Paulo Museum of Art. For “Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America”, the Gallery actively engaged with Bo Bardi’s designs within the exhibition as a strategy to bridge industrial histories, material expertise and distinct building techniques from the Global South.
In 1968, the renowned Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi unveiled her “crystal easels,” a groundbreaking design approach for displaying paintings at the São Paulo Museum of Art. For “Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America”, the Gallery actively engaged with Bo Bardi’s designs within the exhibition as a strategy to bridge industrial histories, material expertise and distinct building techniques from the Global South.
To bring this vision to life, the Gallery has collaborated with the architectural firm WOHA to engage with Bo Bardi’s designs. WOHA has been at the forefront of innovations in architecture and urbanism through their futuristic buildings that remind us we exist within the natural world, not outside of it.
In this wide-ranging talk, Richard Hassell, one of the co-founders of WOHA, will offer insights into the exhibition’s design ethos and reflect on burgeoning questions around postmodern tropicality, urbanism and architecture.
The lecture will be followed by a discussion with the exhibition’s co-curator Shabbir Hussain Mustafa.
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About the Speaker
About the Speaker
Richard Hassell founded Singapore-based architecture firm WOHA in 1994 with Wong Mun Summ. The firm focuses on the integration of environmental and social principles at every stage of the design process. WOHA have received several international awards for their work, and have won seven separate categories in the World Architecture Festival, including the 2018 World Building of the Year for Kampung Admiralty. WOHA launched “Garden City Mega City: Rethinking Cities for the Age of Global Warming” (Pesaro, 2016) at the 2016 Venice Biennale, which shares strategies for the exploding megacities of the tropical belt. Their book “WOHA: New Forms of Sustainable Architecture” (Pesaro, 2022) documents the complete corpus of WOHA’s pioneering sustainable and built work.
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About the Exhibition
About the Exhibition
“Tropical: Stories from Southeast Asia and Latin America” explores the vibrant narratives of artists, dreamers and writers who challenged conventions and fostered solidarities across these two regions. Their unwavering quest to reclaim their rightful position within the story of art forms the core of this exhibition. Featuring over 200 artworks, it is the world’s first large-scale exhibition to take a comparative approach between artistic expressions from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
