Jan 13–Mar 20, 2011

Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry

About

Visionary architect and theorist Anne Tyng has designed a gallery-scale model that embodies her thinking about geometry over the last half century. This installation—built largely from Luan plywood—realizes the ambition of all her work: to inhabit geometry. Since the 1950s, when she worked closely with Louis I. Kahn and independently pioneered habitable space-frame architecture, Tyng has applied natural and numeric systems to built forms on all scales, from urban plans to domestic spaces.

Upon entering Tyng’s installation at ICA, visitors walk into the five Platonic solids, literally. Comprising a tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, and dodecahedron, each space is built to human scale and can be entered, explored, and comprehended. For optimum effect, visitors are invited to look through these open structures at the massive spiral that lifts from the wall and rotates towards the ceiling. This is how Tyng sees the world and derives her own built forms, through the symmetries, orders, and dynamic progressions by which one form in geometry becomes another. The exhibition also features a selection of drawings, models, and other documentation of past projects, including: City Tower (with Kahn, 1952-57); Urban Hierarchy (circa 1970); and the Four-Poster House (1971-74). There are also examples of Tyng’s publications and research, which investigate Jungian cycles, city squares, and the cosmos. Throughout, geometry is both rational and expressive, as much a means of contemplation as of calculation and construction.

About

Anne Tyng (1920–2011) was among the first women to receive a Masters of Architecture from Harvard University. Starting in 1947, she worked closely with Louis I. Kahn and was instrumental in the design of some of his iconic early projects, including the Trenton bath house and the Yale University Art Gallery. After 1986, she focused her attention on research, earning a doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she later taught for almost thirty years.

Installation Views
Sat, Mar 24, 2012, 2PM
Excursus II: Esther McCoy, Anne Tyng
Books & Editions
Anne Tyng: Inhabiting Geometry book cover

Visionary architect and theorist Anne Tyng has designed a gallery-scale model that embodies her thinking about geometry over the last half century. This installation—built largely from Luan plywood—realizes the ambition of all her work: to inhabit geometry. Since the 1950s, when she worked closely with Louis I. Kahn and independently pioneered habitable space-frame architecture, Tyng has applied natural and numeric systems to built forms on all scales, from urban plans to domestic spaces. Throughout, geometry is both rational and expressive, as much a means of contemplation as of calculation and construction. This fully illustrated catalogue includes written contributions by A. Imperiale, Jenny E. Sabin, I. Schaffner, S. Jovanovic Weiss, and W. Whitaker.

ISBN
9780884541219
Pages
111
Publisher
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania
Year
2012
$20.00
ISBN 9780884541219
Publication Date
2012
Authors
A. Imperiale, Jenny E. Sabin, I. Schaffner, S. Jovanovic Weiss, W. Whitaker
Designer
Project Projects
Authors
A. Imperiale, Jenny E. Sabin, I. Schaffner, S. Jovanovic Weiss, W. Whitaker
Publisher
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania
Price
$20.00
ICA is grateful to the Edna W. Andrade Fund of The Philadelphia Foundation and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts for their generous support. We acknowledge Barbara B. & Theodore R. Aronson for their generous sponsorship of the exhibition catalogue. Our thanks to Archer & Buchanan Architecture, Ltd., and KieranTimberlake Associates LLP for additional project funding. ICA is also grateful for support from the: Cheri S. & Steven M. Friedman Vision Endowment Fund; Lawrence Reichlin; Howard A. Silverstein & Patricia B. Silverstein Exhibition Endowment Fund; and Dorothy A. Weber & Stephen R. Weber Endowment Fund; and . Additional funding has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; The Dietrich Foundation, Inc.; the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art; friends and members of ICA; and the University of Pennsylvania. ICA receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. The Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania would like to thank Korin and Larry Korman.