11.18.21 Visiting Lecture | Joshua Ramus: Rethinking Flexibility

Despite an increased need to accommodate change, contemporary architecture still relies on the antiquated modernist vision of flexibility: a blank slate (or white cube or black box) upon which any activity can occur. This approach has historically produced banal, sterile architecture, and the intellectual and economic costs to reconfigure these architectural tabula rasae have become prohibitive. New concepts of flexibility must, and can, be advanced.

The lecture will be introduced by Dean Nader Tehrani. Ted Baab will moderate the discussion that follows.

Joshua Ramus is the founding principal of REX, whose mission is to challenge and advance building paradigms and promote the agency of architecture. He is currently working on The Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center; the Brown University Performing Arts Center in Providence; two mixed-use towers in Australia; the Necklace Residence on Long Island; and a virtual museum and performing arts space for Metapurse, which will “house” Beeple’s infamous NFT The first 5000 Days. Joshua’s belief that architecture should do things for its users and communities, and not simply be a representational art, was first applied to his design of the Seattle Central Library, which he led as a founding partner of OMA New York.