Innovative Architecture at UCSB Art Museum

By Robert Bernstein

Clocks and Clouds: The Architecture of Escher GuneWardena opened this weekend at the UCSB Art, Design and Architecture Museum.

Here are my photos! We were very fortunate to arrive just as innovative architects Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena gave a very intimate tour of the exhibit of their work! Lilian Pfaff had just written a book on their work and she was there with them:

The title Clocks and Clouds refers to a concept from philosopher of science Karl Popper. Clocks are neat, orderly systems that can be solved through reduction; clouds are an epistemic mess, “highly irregular, disorderly, and more or less unpredictable.”

The Escher GuneWardena team took pride in being able to build in locations that otherwise would be impossible to build. Notably, in steep canyons in Los Angeles.

The exhibit is a mix of architectural drawings, architectural models and photos of finished projects. About half of the modeled projects have actually been built. Others are in the process of approval or final design.

Several are art museums. This one is notable for incorporating tree planters as part of the structure and providing a Guggenheim Museum type ramp to stroll up onto the roof:

One is a planned expansion of an Episcopal church to include meditation and worship areas for Native people and other denominations:

But most of the projects are houses. In the case of one house, the children who live there were invited up to show off the model!

The exhibit includes some other art and performance projects that are related in various ways to the work of these architects: