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2017 Graham Foundation Grantees Include Catherine Seavitt Nordenson and Tulay Atak

POSTED ON: June 19, 2017

Manfredo Tafuri, Giorgio Piccinato, and Vieri Quilici, page spread of "City Territory: Toward a New Dimension" as published in Casabella 270, December 1962, Italy. Courtesy of Casabella.

Manfredo Tafuri, Giorgio Piccinato, and Vieri Quilici, page spread of "City Territory: Toward a New Dimension" as published in Casabella 270, December 1962, Italy. Courtesy of Casabella.
AUA [Studio Architettu Urbanisti Associati di Roma, team including Manfredo Tafuri], L'Ingranaggio [Gear], entry for Turin Competition, 1963, Italy.

AUA [Studio Architettu Urbanisti Associati di Roma, team including Manfredo Tafuri], L'Ingranaggio [Gear], entry for Turin Competition, 1963, Italy.
Roberto Burle Marx, aerial view of the Crystal Plaza garden for the Ministry of the Army with Oscar Niemeyer’s Army Headquarters complex seen beyond, 1972, Brasília, Brazil. Courtesy of the Arquivo Público do Distrito Federal.

Roberto Burle Marx, aerial view of the Crystal Plaza garden for the Ministry of the Army with Oscar Niemeyer’s Army Headquarters complex seen beyond, 1972, Brasília, Brazil. Courtesy of the Arquivo Público do Distrito Federal.
Roberto Burle Marx, reflecting pools at the Crystal Plaza garden for the Ministry of the Army, c. 1973, Brasília, Brazil. Photograph by Marcel Gautherot, courtesy of the Instituto Moreira Salles.

Roberto Burle Marx, reflecting pools at the Crystal Plaza garden for the Ministry of the Army, c. 1973, Brasília, Brazil. Photograph by Marcel Gautherot, courtesy of the Instituto Moreira Salles.

The winners of the 2017 round of Graham Foundation grants for individuals include School of Architecture Associate Professor Tulay Atak and alumna Catherine Seavitt Nordenson (AR‘94).

Associate Professor Atak’s project, Architectural Form Faces Urbanization – Jaffa City Center Competition was inspired by Manfredo Tafuri’s essay, “Critical Rationalism and New Utopianism: Competition for Restructuring Tel Aviv–Jaffa City Center." Atak articulates the goals of the project as Focusing on competitions that Tafuri was involved in either as a critic or as part of a design team, In both Italy and Israel. “The project documents how architects imagined the future of the city, especially new city centers and transitional zones, by considering the formal operations of architecture at the scale of the city.”

Catherine Seavitt Nordenson's project, Depositions: Cultura and the Counsel of Roberto Burle Marx, explores the activist role of landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx as a member of Federal Council of Culture, appointed by Brazil's military dictatorship. Her forthcoming book with the University of Texas Press presents new translations of the eighteen environmental position pieces delivered during Burle Marx's tenure as counselor, between 1967 and 1974, while reflecting on his public parks and plazas designed over a forty-year period. "Despite the inherent ethical conflict presented by working with the military regime in power at the time, Burle Marx considered this advisory position to be an important cultural project, one providing an effective platform for environmental advocacy while exhibiting a bold voice of caution against rapid development, resource exploitation, and ecological devastation."

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