Nicholas Fox Weber's Blog, page 2
October 17, 2019
June 27, 2015
Architectural Record June 2015
THREAD: Artists’ Residence & Cultural Center Sinthian, SenegalToshiko Mori Architect
Common Thread: A light-filled artists’ residence in a remote Senegalese village encourages dialogue while serving its community.
By Anna Fixsen
A favorite dictum of artist Josef Albers—known for his meditative, color-saturated paintings of overlapping squares—was “minimal means, maximum effect.” Forty years after his death, this idea is at the heart of a new initiative of the Connecticut-based Josef and Anni Albers Foundation: an artists’ residency program and cultural center in rural Senegal. THREAD, as the center is called, is a sensitive work, designed pro bono by New York architect Toshiko Mori, that aims to weave together art, education, and cultural exchange under one roof.
The road to Sinthian, a village of 705 people in Senegal’s Tambacounda Region near the border of Mali, is dotted with stately baobabs and hulking termite mounds. In this sun-scorched part of sub-Saharan Africa, temperatures can climb well above 115 degrees, and once-plentiful aquifers have disappeared due to overuse and desertification.
Nicholas Fox Weber, executive director of the Albers Foundation, had been volunteering on and off for more than two decades with a local clinic here to combat high rates of infant and maternal mortality. He also dreamed of taking the Albers Foundation’s mission—to educate the public about art—to Africa. After Mori designed an exhibition for the Cooper-Hewitt museum of the Alberses’ work—Anni’s textiles alongside Josef’s Bauhaus-influenced furniture—the two became friends. Weber convinced Mori to bring her studio at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) to Senegal.
“I had been to different places, but not to Africa with students,” Mori says. “But Nicholas knew the local people and the context. We had the necessary connections and relationships.”
Through trips to two different towns in 2010 and 2012, the students identified a need for cultural venues to accommodate the rich Senegalese traditions of music and dancing. “The villagers loved our ideas and wanted to build everything we proposed,” says Mori. “It was like a dream for them.”
Fox Weber asked Mori’s office to design an Albers Foundation artists’ residence in Sinthian, where he had been working with the clinic, to foster cultural and artistic exchange between local and international artists. Mori, along with former student Jordan MacTavish (now a designer in her office), modified a scheme that emerged from the 2010 GSD studio—a low-slung brick building with a dramatic undulating bamboo roof that is as graceful as it is functional
Photos © Iwan Baan
Read more
ARCHITECTURAL RECORD JUNE 2015
The post Architectural Record June 2015 appeared first on www.nicholasfoxweber.com.
June 25, 2015
June 24, 2015
June 23, 2015
Sam Bruchet raises funds for AFLK
Sam Bruchet and Nicholas Fox Weber Picture: Clare Keogh
Sam Bruchet, the twelve-year old son of Fiona Kearney, ran 3.2. miles, swam 625 meters (25 lengths), hit the crossbar 5 times (in football) and played a round of tennis with Willie, Fiona’s partner, in order to raise over 500 Euros for AFLK.
In Senegal, that is enough money to pay for cataract surgery and follow-up treatment for someone who otherwise would not have a chance of it, or to send two children to kindergarten for a year, or to provide life-saving nutrition for scores of infants and toddlers. Thank you, Sam!
The post Sam Bruchet raises funds for AFLK appeared first on www.nicholasfoxweber.com.
