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Bureau Spectacular imagines other worlds and engages the design of architecture through telling stories. Beautiful stories about character development, relationships, curiosities and attitudes; absurd stories about fake realities that invite enticing possibilities. The stories conflate design, representation, theory, criticism, history and taste into cartoon pages. These cartoon narratives swerve into the physical world through architectural installations, buildings, studies, objects and publications.
Current Members:
Jimenez Lai, Gil Grassmann
Jimenez Lai works in the world of art, culture, and education. Lai's Master of Architecture thesis was a science fiction about a post-teleportation world. Previously, Jimenez Lai lived in a desert shelter at Taliesin and resided in a shipping container at Atelier Van Lieshout on the piers of Rotterdam. Before founding Bureau Spectacular, Lai worked for various international offices, including MOS and OMA. Lai is widely exhibited and published around the world, including the MoMA-collected White Elephant. His first book, Citizens of No Place, was published by Princeton Architectural Press with a grant from the Graham Foundation. Draft II of this book has been archived at the New Museum. Lai has won various awards, including the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale, and the 2017 Designer of the Future Award at Art Basel / Design Miami. In 2014, Lai represented Taiwan at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2015, Lai organized the Treatise exhibition and publication series at the Graham Foundation. Lai's work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, SFMOMA, Art Institute of Chicago, and LACMA. Jimenez Lai was the 2024 Gwathmey Chair at Cooper Union.
Former Members:
Kaveh Arbab, Mo Nazmy, Rushabh Parekh, Mark Talbot, Kevin Hayes, Matt van der Ploeg, Jasper Reyes, Josh Lowrance, Nick Stoever, Nick Krause, Thomas Kelley, Cyrus Penarroyo, Andrew Akins, Sophie Kohn, Trudy Watt, Zack Morrison, Katherine Ranieri, Senaid Salcin, Matthew Messner, Matthew Schneider, John Donoghue, Aaron Spiering, Peeraya Suphasidh, Allison Reynolds, Alex Culler, Frank Gossage, Felipe Oropeza Jr, Manon Brissaud-Frenk, Eugenia Macchia, Shun-Ping Liu, Jacob Waas, Ann Lok Lui, Dirk van der Meij, Kevin Pazik, Joanna Grant, Jeffrey Anderson, Ana Moriyon, Ingui Ryu, Ed Crooks, Terrence Hector, Jacob Comerci, Jesse Hammer, Eric Hsu, Pauline Chen, May Wang, Heidi Alexander, Brian Daugherty, Asli Tusavul, Roojiar Sadeghilalabadi, Steve Martinez, Tatiana Southey-Bassols, Mark Kamish, Isaac Howell, Man-Yan Lam, Sohun Kang, Juan Carlos Villarreal, Poyao Shih, Eric Lawler, Lucas Budgett, Thinh Nguyen, Dee Vasilevskaia, Clara Pugsley, Sarah Wagner, Jeffrey Liu, Lena Kohl, Jake Parkin, Jade Narrido, Veronica Smith, Tanvi Rao, Sharif Anous, Sam Pladet, Abby Dorrell, Lauren Mitchell, Chieh-Ting Chuang, Kyoung Eun Park, Georgia Pogas, Mark Kamish, Ted Zhang, Kristoffer Tjerrild, Jiajia Shi, David Musa, Michael DePrez, Ilayda Kal, Renee Gao, Ekin Bilal, Xavier Ramirez, Ana Antoni, Kabir Sahni, Sophie Akoury, Taiga Taba, Isabel Gonzalez, Peipei Wu, Zane Abu Hamdan, Bryan Lee, Negin Sabouhi, Cullen Fu, Yushan Men, Davide Gualco, Nur Nuri, Priscilla Barker
A Swing, A Stack, and a Spool (Log 61)
2024
Spaceship Hour (e-flux)
2021
Permanent Ghosts of Ephemeral Models (Log 50)
2021
Zoombies of the Zoomspace (POOL)
2021
The Hair Essay (Werewolf)
2020
Irony and Sincerity (Log 46)
2019
The Medium is the Practice (Omar Gandhi Monograph)
2018
All I Ever Think About Series: I-X (Perspecta 52)
2018
The Function of Utopia (AD)
2018
The Art of Architectural Montage (UABB Catalog)
2016
Rooms with a View (Interwoven)
2016
The Politics of Flatness (Treatise Series)
2015
Character Plasticity (Volume)
2012