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Van Alen Institute Fellowship Program

By John Gendall

The Van Alen Institute, in New York, exists to engage architecture in the public realm. To that end, the nonprofit organization, named after William Van Alen, architect of the Chrysler Building, has a 100-year legacy of sponsoring competitions, exhibitions, and research programs.

Image courtesy Van Alen Institute

Van Alen Institute New York Prize Fellowship Project, 2008-2009

Click here to view more images from New York Prize Fellowship Project, 2008-2009.

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Last year, the Van Alen introduced a fellowship program, meant to support emerging architectural practitioners and scholars. As a result, the institute has become an architectural alchemist, putting together wide-ranging research interests to get at the notion of public architecture. Last year, five teams rotated through the Van Alen’s office in three-month stints, pursuing projects ranging from the development of water bottles that doubled as masonry units (United Bottle) to the design for a system of public parks in Kibera, Africa (Kounkuey Design Initiative).

This year’s six teams should be no less innovative. Irene Cheng and Brett Snyder, founders of the New York studio Cheng + Snyder, will develop what they call an “open-source museum.” “We’d like to make people at once curators and visitors of the museum,” explained Snyder. The team hopes to encourage the public to treat New York City as a museum, by sending and receiving text, image, and sound messages over telecommunication devices. “The project will use the ubiquitous cell phones and PDAs to create an interactive museum of architecture and urbanism,” according to Snyder, who hopes to finalize one of the museum’s itineraries during the fellowship.

Another team hopes to bridge the small geographic—but, to many, psychologically monumental—barrier that divides the Bronx from Manhattan. Conceived by Alexander Levi and Amanda Schachter, the project calls for small architectural interventions and on-site workshops along the Bronx River.

Two projects will engage issues of sustainability. Nataly Gattegno and Jason Johnson, who direct the Charlottesville, Virginia–based Future Cities Lab, have an aurora in mind. Their project envisions a 3D map made with LEDs, designed to track the changing effects of human activity on the arctic ice caps. And landscape architect Denise Hoffman Brandt will investigate the potential to harvest urban carbon reservoirs. The City College of New York assistant professor hopes to develop urban planning and design strategies to amplify carbon sequestration.

Gabi Schillig, a designer from Berlin, will use her fellowship to design clothing. She hopes her so-called “spatial textile structures” will help mediate its wearers and the architecture of public spaces. Elisa Fuksas, of Rome, and Alexander Josephson, of Toronto, will together develop strategies for opposing the Chinese mandate for single-child families.

Fellows will execute their projects working from the Van Alen’s office in New York City during a three month-long residency. Van Alen provides the teams with a small stipend, along with project support funds up to $10,000. Maya Lin will serve as a Senior Fellow, developing her Missing monument, which will call attention to species and places that are nearing extinction or that have gone extinct during this generation.

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