Aaron Betsky
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Aaron Betsky, born 1958 in
Missoula, Montana Missoula ( ; fla, label=Salish language, Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula Cou ...
, is an American critic on art, architecture and design. He was the director of
Virginia Tech Virginia Tech (formally the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and informally VT, or VPI) is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia. It also ...
's School of Architecture + Design until early 2022. Trained as an architect and in the humanities at Yale University, he is the author of over a dozen books, including Architecture Matters, Making It Modern, Landscrapers: Building With the Land, Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio, Queer Space, Revelatory Landscapes, and Architecture Must Burn. Internationally known as a lecturer, curator, reviewer and commentator, he writes the blog "Beyond Buildings" for Architect Magazine. Director of the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, he has also been president and Dean of the School of Architecture at Taliesin (originally the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture), director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2001-2006) the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006-2014), and was founding Curator of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1995-2001). As an unlicensed architect, he worked for Frank O. Gehry & Associates and Hodgetts + Fung. In 2003, he co-curated "Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio" at the Whitney Museum of American Art.


Early life

Betsky was born in
Missoula Missoula ( ; fla, label=Salish language, Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County, Montana, Missoula Cou ...
,
Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
, but moved with his family as a child to the Netherlands, returning to the USA for college at
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
. He graduated from Yale in 1979 with a B.A. in History, the Arts and Letters (1979) and received his Masters of Architecture from Yale University School of Architecture in 1983.


Career

From 1995 to 2001 Betsky was Curator of Architecture, Design and Digital Projects at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
. From 2001 to 2006 he served as director of the
Netherlands Architecture Institute The Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) was a cultural institute for architecture and urban development, which comprised a museum, an archive plus library and a platform for lectures and debates. The NAI was established in 1988 and was ba ...
. He has taught at
SCI-Arc Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) is a private architecture school in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1972, SCI-Arc was initially regarded as both institutionally and artistically avant-garde and more adventurous than t ...
, the A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, the
University of Cincinnati The University of Cincinnati (UC or Cincinnati) is a public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1819 as Cincinnati College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in Cincinnati and has an annual enrollment of over 44,00 ...
, among others, and worked for Frank O. Gehry & Associates and Hodgetts + Fung. From August 2006 to January 2014, he was the director of the
Cincinnati Art Museum The Cincinnati Art Museum is an art museum in the Eden Park neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1881, it was the first purpose-built art museum west of the Alleghenies, and is one of the oldest in the United States. Its collection of ov ...
. In 2008, he was named as the director of the 11th Exhibition of the
Venice Biennale of Architecture Venice Biennale of Architecture (in Italian Mostra di Architettura di Venezia) is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 202 ...
, which he titled, ''Out There. Architecture Beyond Building''. In January, 2015, Betsky was appointed dean of the School of Architecture at Taliesin (formerly the
Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...
School of Architecture). In 2020 he was appointed director of the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech, but no longer held that position as of February 2022.


Writings

Betsky has addressed the historically gendered nature of architecture (''Building Sex: Men, Women, Architecture, and the Construction of Sexuality'', 1995), the unique qualities of Dutch design (''False Flat: Why Dutch Design is So Good'', 2004), and consistently advocated for an interpretation of architecture that transcends physical building (see his writings in ''Architecture Must Burn'', 2000; and ''Out There: Architecture Beyond Building'', 2008). Another recurrent theme in his writings is a call to embrace and reimagine the American suburban landscape (see ''At Home in Sprawl'', 2011). Betsky has championed temporary or pop-up architecture as a democratic antidote to architecture's traditional "ridiculous obsession with eternity." He has often called for the renovation and adaptive reuse of old buildings rather than wasteful construction of new ones: "When will we learn that adaptation and reuse is so much better?" Betsky has written monographs on the work of numerous 20th and 21st century architects and designers, including
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 ...
,
I.M. Pei Ieoh Ming Pei
– website of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners
( ; ; April 26, 1917 – May 16, 2019) was ...
,
UN Studio UNStudio (formerly Van Berkel en Bos Architectenbureau) is a Dutch architectural practice specializing in architecture, urban development and "infrastructural" projects. The practice was founded in 1988 by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos. The ini ...
, Koning Eizenberg,
MVRDV MVRDV is a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 1993. The name is an acronym for the founding members: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries. History Maas and Van Rijs worked at OMA, De Vr ...
, Renny Ramakers,
Jim Olson Jim Olson, FAIA (b. 1940) is the founding principal of the Seattle-based firm Olson Kundig Architects. He is best known for residential design, often for art collectors, though his designs have also included museums, commercial spaces and places o ...
, and
James Gamble Rogers James Gamble Rogers (March 3, 1867 – October 1, 1947) was an American architect. A proponent of what came to be known as Collegiate Gothic architecture, he is best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia Univer ...
, as well as treatises on
aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...
,
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
and
human sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
as they pertain to aspects of architecture, and is one of the main contributors to a spatial interpretation of Queer theory. His essay "Plain Weirdness: The Architecture of Neutelings Riedijk" won the 2014 Geert Bekaert Prize in Architectural Criticism. He has made significant contributions to architecture history and theory, including a scholarly monograph on early-20th-century architect
James Gamble Rogers James Gamble Rogers (March 3, 1867 – October 1, 1947) was an American architect. A proponent of what came to be known as Collegiate Gothic architecture, he is best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia Univer ...
() and an analysis of buildings embedded in the earth, ''Landscrapers: Building with the Land'' (ISBN 9780500341889). His 2016 book on the history of Modern design, ''Making It Modern,'' was listed on Metropolis magazine's "Top 50 Design Books to Read This Fall." His 2017 book ''Architecture Matters,'' which Interior Design magazine called "a delightful ramble through a lively, well-stocked mind," offers "46 Thoughts on Why Architecture Matters," among them “Why Architecture Is So Cool (to a Teenager),” “How Dreams Die in the Process,” “How Perfection Kills,” “Why It All Happens in China,” and “What We Can Still Learn From the Greeks.” In addition to his books, Betsky authors a twice-weekly column for Architect Magazine, the "Beyond Buildings" blog, and is a contributing writer for Dezeen magazine. His articles, published in various magazines such as ArtForum, Architectural Review, Architect, Blueprint, and others, include critical ideas for improving the built environment, for example: "We need to start from the qualities of the interior that usually come from furniture and furnishings, while also paying attention to the thoughtful use of light, scale and sequence. This means that pattern and decoration, arrangement of furniture and fixtures, ways in which buildings respond to the body, and the ability for the interior to both cocoon us and create a relationship to a larger world through frames and views, need to be the seed of all design."


Publications

* Aaron Betsky, G. Shapiro, Andrew Pielage (2021). ''50 Lessons to Learn from Frank Lloyd Wright''. Rizzoli. ISBN 9780847865369 *Aaron Betsky (2019). ''Renny Ramakers: Rethinking Design''. Lars Müller. *Jim Olson, Aaron Betsky (2018). ''Jim Olson: Building, Nature, Art.'' Thames & Hudson. *Aaron Betsky and Andrew Bromberg (2018). ''Andrew Bromberg at Aedas: Building, Nature, Cities.'' Thames & Hudson. *Aaron Betsky (2017). ''Architecture Matters''. Thames and Hudson. *Aaron Betsky (2016). ''Making it Modern: The History of Modernism in Architecture of Design''. New York and Barcelona: Actar. * Aaron Betsky (2012) ''At Home in Sprawl: Selected Essays on Architecture.'' RMIT University Press. * Aaron Betsky (2008). ''Out There. Architecture Beyond Building: 11th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia''. Marsilio. * Aaron Betsky, Adam Eeuwens (2004) ''False Flat: Why Dutch Design Is So Good.'' Phaidon. * W. Maas, A. Betsky, S. Kwinter, B. Lootsma, A. Ruby (2003). ''Reading MVRDV.'' Rotterdam: NAi Publishers. * A. Betsky, K. M. Hays, G. M. Anderson (2003) ''Scanning: The Aberrant Architectures of Diller + Scofidio.'' Whitney Museum of American Art. * Aaron Betsky (2002) ''Landscrapers: building with the land.'' Thames and Hudson. * B. van Berkel, A. Betsky, C. Bos, M. Wigley (2002) UN Studio: UNFOLD, NAi Publishers. * Aaron Betsky, E. Adigard (2000) ''Architecture Must Burn: a manifesto for an architecture beyond building.'' Thames and Hudson. * R. Moore, J. Herzog, A. Betsky, P. Davies (1999) ''Vertigo: The Strange New World of the Contemporary City.'' Gingko Press. * A. Betsky, O. R. Ojeda (1999) ''Miller Hull Partnership.'' Rockport Publishers. * T. González de León, A. Betsky, A. Leon (1998) ''Kalach & Alvarez'', Rockport Publishers. * A. Betsky, A. Suzuki, D. Jackson, P. Zellner (1998) ''Pacific Edge: Contemporary Architecture on the Pacific Rim.'' Rizzoli. * T. Riley, A. Betsky, X. Costa, M. Robbins (1998) ''Fabrications'', Actar. * Aaron Betsky (1998) ''Zaha Hadid: Das Gesamtwerk.'' DVA. * Zaha M. Hadid, Aaron Betsky (1998). ''Zaha Hadid: The Complete Buildings and Projects.'' Rizzoli. * Aaron Betsky (1997). ''Queer space: architecture and same-sex desire.'' William Morrow. * Aaron Betsky (1997). ''ICONS: Magnets of Meaning.'' San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. *A. Jarmusch, A. Betsky, R. W. Quigley, M. S. Larson, M. Benedikt, M. Les Benedict (1996). ''Rob Wellington Quigley: Buildings and Projects''. Rizzoli. * Aaron Betsky (1995) ''Building sex : men, women, architecture, and the construction of sexuality.'' William Morrow. * Aaron Betsky (1994) ''James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism'', The MIT Press. * Aaron Betsky (1992) Architecture & medicine : I.M. Pei designs the
Kirklin Clinic The Kirklin Clinic is the primary adult outpatient clinic of the medical staff of UAB Hospital, and of the faculty of the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Kirklin Clinic also is the site for many clinical rotations in the medical school's ...
, University Press of America * Aaron Betsky, J. Chase, L. Whiteson (1991) ''Experimental Architecture in Los Angeles.'' Rizzoli. * Aaron Betsky (1990) ''Violated perfection: Architecture and the Fragmentation of the Modern.'' Rizzoli.


References


External links

*Aaron Betsky
Beyond Buildings Blog, Architect Magazine
*
Archinect
{{DEFAULTSORT:Betsky, Aaron Yale School of Architecture alumni Architects from Montana Writers from Missoula, Montana Living people 1958 births Directors of the Cincinnati Art Museum