Distinctive architecture, uninhibited ocean views, bold supergraphics, shared open space, and meditative tranquility—these were the beginnings of the Sea Ranch, a beacon of Modernism on the Northern California coast. Designed by a small group of Bay Area architects and designers in the early 1960s, the development was envisioned as a progressive, inclusive community, guided by the idealistic principles of good design, economy of space, and harmony with the natural environment.

This exhibition brings together original sketches and drawings from the project's designers, along with archival images, photographs of the Sea Ranch today, and a full-scale architectural replica. The environmentally attentive design philosophies explored at the Sea Ranch, along with the now-iconic graphics, resonated globally and continue to influence architecture and design today.

The exhibition features works by artist and architect Lawrence Halprin. Click here for more information and tickets.

Architectural and urban history scholar Emily Bills writes about how a young, talented photographer went on to capture some of the most iconic photos of Frank Lloyd Wright and his work, while forming a close bond with the architect.

The inimitable R. Buckminster Fuller, famous for his geodesic domes among many other inventions, is getting an exhibition that’s a first-of-its-kind for Los Angeles, the city he last called home. Centered largely around the limited-edition print Inventions portfolio, R. Buckminster Fuller: Inventions and Models will feature an array of prints, objects, and structural models produced in the last years of his life that highlight the radical thoughts of one of the 20^th century’s most iconic architectural thinkers.

Austin's newest public art project may not solve the city's traffic woes, but it will make the experience more beautiful. 

As part of the city's sixth annual "TEMPO 2018" temporary exhibition, local artist Laurie Frick is reimagining the Lamar Bridge Underpass, two 500-foot concrete retaining walls that stretch from West Fifth Street to Lady Bird Lake. The temporary piece marries Frick's skills as a data-driven artist with Austin's penchant for public art to create sweeping, colorful murals along both sides of Lamar Boulevard. 

Pedro E. Guerrero: The Photographer of Mid-Century New Canaan opens Sept. 28 at the New Canaan Historical Society. The exhibition includes 25 of Guerrero's black and white photos, many depicting the architecture for which the town is famous, and will coincide with the Society's much anticipated MOdern House Day Tour on October 20th. A second gallery will be devoted to the life of Guerrero and his family in New Canaan during some fo the town's most tumultuous - and interesting - years. 

Click below for information about related events. 

Richard Buckminster Fuller’s retrospective, “Inventions and Models” is currently on view at the Edward Cella Art & Architecture, Los Angeles, through November 3, 2018. The exhibition gives a peek into Fuller’s perspective on the world and humanity.

Fuller (1895-1983) is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th Century and his ability to think across disciplines, connecting the worlds of science, engineering, architecture, design, and art was one of his most important and lasting contributions....

Famed for inventing the geodesic dome, R. Buckminster Fuller also re-imagined housing, transportation, mapping, engineering, and construction systems. Thirty-five years after his passing in Los Angeles, Edward Cella Art & Architecture presents R. Buckminster Fuller: Inventions and Models, an exhibition of original prints, models, and objects by the 20th-century visionary, affectionately known as Bucky Fuller.

On Saturday, Sept. 22 at 3 pm, Thomas T.K. Zung, partner of Buckminster Fuller, Sadao & Zung Architects will give illustrated talk on Fuller’s life and work. And coming up on Saturday, Oct. 13, his daughter Allegra Fuller Snyder, longtime dancer as well as founder of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, will discuss its current projects with Board President David McConville.

Often called the “Leonardo da Vinci of our time,” Buckminster Fuller wasn’t just an architect. As an inventor, artist and engineer, his futuristic, revolutionary designs are perhaps more relevant today than ever before. A new exhibition and the first of its kind in the Los Angeles area, Richard Buckminster Fuller: Inventions and Models at Edward Cella Art & Architecture gallery, examines some of his most important inventions and cultural contributions, including his prefabricated housing designs and Dymaxion maps.

American artist David Horvitz, whose works often juxtapose man-made systems and natural phenomena, has created Señalamiento del cielo (Signaling the Sky), a series of performances that encourage public participation – especially by children – as the work is realized by the release of 200 helium balloons in each of three locations. The spontaneous route of each balloon string as it disappears into the air is an homage to the French artist Marcel Duchamp, who spent a little-known sojourn in Buenos Aires from 1918 to 1919. During this period, the godfather of conceptual art sent his sister instructions for a work he titled Unhappy Readymade: hang a geometry book on a clothesline and subject it to fluctuating weather conditions. Similarly pairing arithmetic (each balloon string is exactly one mile long) with unpredictable forces, Señalamiento del cielo (Signaling the Sky) illustrates man’s sublime futility in the face of nature. The aerial landscape produced by the balloons is a celebration of collective ritual and at the same time a rejection of the industrial city, as our eyes are drawn irresistibly toward the sky. The title is a reference to Argentinian conceptual artist Edgardo Antonio Vigo‘s Señalamientos series, which invites the public to perceive everyday objects as readymades.

This artwork has been realized with assistance from the Ministry of Ambient and Public Space of the City of Buenos Aires. Special thanks to Indura.

Known for his vast installations and sculptures about signs, symbols, and the way they produce meaning in a world saturated with images, Matt Mullican is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Pirelli HangarBicocca museum in Milan. With that show in mind, republished below is Peter Clothier’s profile of Mullican, which first ran in the Summer 1989 issue of ARTnews. The article focuses on the artist as he readies a large-scale project that involved using computers to create networks of symbols. “I like that idea—an engine generating meaning,” Mullican told Clother. The article, reprinted with the permission of the author, follows in full below. —Alex Greenberger