Mark Antony Wigley (born 1956) is a New Zealand-born architect and author based in the United States. From 2004 to 2014, he was the Dean of Columbia University's

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) is the architecture school of Columbia University, a private research university in New York City. It is regarded as an important and highly prestigious architecture school.

Career

Wigley received both his Bachelor of Architecture (1979) and Ph.D. (1987) from the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

, New Zealand. Mike Austin was his doctoral supervisor. Wigley left

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

in 1986 and taught at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, from 1987 to 1999, serving also as the director of Graduate Studies at Princeton’s School of Architecture. In 1988, Wigley co-curated with

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...

the

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

exhibition ''Deconstructivist Architecture''. The exhibition featured the works of seven architects, who were already well-known at the time for a style of architecture that involved in various ways "deconstructing" conventional notions of architectural convention:

Frank Gehry Frank Owen Gehry, , FAIA (; ; born ) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are considered ...

Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...

Peter Eisenman Peter Eisenman (born August 11, 1932) is an American architect. Considered one of the New York Five, Eisenman is known for his writing and speaking about architecture as well as his designs, which have been called high modernist or deconstructiv ...

Daniel Libeskind Daniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish–American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect. He is known for the design a ...

Bernard Tschumi Bernard Tschumi (born 25 January 1944 in Lausanne, Switzerland) is an architect, writer, and educator, commonly associated with deconstructivism. Son of the well-known Swiss architect Jean Tschumi and a French mother, Tschumi is a dual French-S ...

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a re ...

and

Coop Himmelb(l)au Coop Himmelb(l)au (A pun meaning ''Coop Sky Building'' and ''Coop Sky Blue'') is an architecture, urban planning, design, and art firm founded by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky, and Michael Holzer in Vienna, Austria in 1968. History Coop Him ...

. The curators linked the works to the philosophical notion of

Deconstruction The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...

, as espoused by French philosopher

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

, as well as the art-architectural historical precedent of

Russian constructivism Constructivism is an early twentieth-century art movement founded in 1915 by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko. Abstract and austere, constructivist art aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space. The movement rejected deco ...

, and several works from this period were displayed in the exhibition. However, of the architects only Eisenman and Tschumi acknowledged the connection to Derrida and only Hadid and Koolhaas to Constructivism.

Personal life

Mark Wigley is married to architectural historian

Beatriz Colomina Beatriz Colomina (born 1952) is an architecture historian, theorist and curator. She is the founding director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University, the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and Direct ...

Volume Magazine

In 2005, Wigley founded

Volume Magazine ''Volume Magazine'' is a quarterly international magazine published in Amsterdam. ''Volume Magazine'' is a project bArchis(Amsterdam)OMA(Rotterdam) anC-Lab(Columbia University, New York). ''Volume'' was created as a global idea platform to voice ...

together with

and

Ole Bouman Ole Bouman (born 1960, Amersfoort) is a Dutch German historian, writer, curator in urbanism design and architecture. Bouman is the founding director of Design Society, an initiative of China Merchants Group and the Victoria and Albert Museum in S ...

. A collaborative project by Archis (Amsterdam), AMO Rotterdam and C-lab (

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

NY),

is an experimental

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

focusing on the process of spatial and cultural reflexivity. The magazine aims to explore "beyond architecture’s definition of 'making buildings'" by presenting global views on architecture and design, broader attitudes to social structures and created environments; and embodies progressive journalism. Created and founded in collaboration with Brett Steele the Institute of Failure; essentially an academic institution for the instruction and theory of failure (as opposed to success).

Awards

Wigley was awarded the Resident Fellowship,

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Institute for Architecture and Urbanism, 1989;

International Committee of Architectural Critics The International Committee of Architectural Critics (french: Comité International des Critiques d'Architecture, es, Comité Internacional de Críticos de Arquitectura - CICA) is a non-profit organization of international architecture critics ...

(C.I.C.A.) Triennial Award for Architectural Criticism, 1990; and the Graham Foundation Grant, 1997.

Exhibitions

*
Deconstructivist Architecture
',

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York, 23 June to 30 August 1988 (with

) *
Constant — New Babylon
',

Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art Kunstinstituut Melly is a contemporary art gallery located in a former school building on Witte de Withstraat, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was founded in 1990 and originally named after the street it was located on. It presents curated exhib ...

, Rotterdam, 21 November 1997 to 10 January 1998 *
The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life
',

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a Architecture museum, museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between r ...

, Montreal, 16 June 1998 to 8 November 1998 (with

Elizabeth Diller Elizabeth Diller, also known as Liz Diller, is an American architect and partner in Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which she co-founded in 1979. She is also an architecture professor at Princeton University. Life Elizabeth Diller was born in 1954 in ...

, Alessandra Ponte,

Ricardo Scofidio Ricardo is the Spanish and Portuguese cognate of the name Richard. It derived from Proto-Germanic ''*rīks'' 'king, ruler' + ''*harduz'' 'hard, brave'. It may be a given name, or a surname. People Given name *Ricardo de Araújo Pereira, Portugu ...

, Georges Teyssot, and Mark Wasiuta) *
Another City for Another Life: Constant’s New Babylon
',

The Drawing Center The Drawing Center is a Manhattan, New York, museum and a nonprofit exhibition space that focuses on the exhibition of drawings, both historical and contemporary. History The Drawing Center was founded by former assistant curator of drawings at ...

, New York, 2 November 1999 to 30 December 1999 *
Laboratories: Six Young Architectural Firms in the CCA Galleries
',

, Montreal, 18 April 2002 to 15 September 2002 (with Frédéric Migayrou) *
out of the box: price rossi stirling + matta-clark
',

, Montreal, 23 October 2003 to 6 September 2004 (with Marco de Michelis, Philip Ursprung, Anthony Vidler, Hubertus von Amelunxen, and Mirko Zardini)

Bibliography

*(With Philip Johnson)
Deconstructivist Architecture.
' New York: The Museum of Modern Art; Boston: Little Brown and Company; Distributed by New York Graphic Society Books, 1988. *''The Architecture of

: Derrida's Haunt''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1993. *''White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. *''Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire''. Rotterdam: Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, 1998. *(Edited with

Catherine De Zegher Catherine de Zegher (born Marie-Catherine Alma Gladys de Zegher Groningen, April 14, 1955) is a Belgian curator and a modern and contemporary art historian. She has a degree in art history and archaeology from the University of Ghent. From 1988 t ...

) ''The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationist Architectures from Constant's New Babylon to Beyond''. New York: The Drawing Center, 2001. *(With James Graham). ''Cutting Matta-Clark. The Anarchitecture Project''. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers; New York: Columbia University GSAPP, 2014. *''

Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio''. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2015. *(With

). ''Are We Human? : Notes on an Archaeology of Design''. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2016. *''Cutting Matta-Clark. The Anarchitecture Investigation''. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers; Montreal:

; New York: Columbia University GSAPP, 2018.

References

External links

17 September 2006 Hammer Conversation
with Mark Wigley and

Wolfgang Tillmans Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. Tillmans was the first photog ...

Columbia University faculty BiographyVolume MagazineInterview Mark Wigley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wigley, Mark New Zealand architects New Zealand emigrants to the United States American architecture writers American male non-fiction writers New Zealand architecture writers Architectural theoreticians Living people Columbia University faculty Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation faculty Princeton University faculty University of Auckland alumni 1956 births People from Palmerston North