Parrish Art Museum Launches Architecture Series on March 3

The Parrish Art Museum is celebrating the East End’s tradition of fabulous and innovative architecture with a new series where area architects can exchange ideas and insights with leading practitioners and thinkers from a variety of disciplines. Kicking off at the museum this Friday, March 3, Inter-Sections: The Architect in Conversation brings together diverse voices, communities and interest groups concerned with building and design, and creating a vibrant and sustainable future on the East End.

Through several programs each year, Inter-Sections will explore the architect’s role in proposing design solutions for cultural, infrastructural, environmental, social and geopolitical challenges. The series may include talks, panels, symposia, workshops, think tanks, and special projects that foster an open dialogue between architects and professionals in the fields of art, landscape design, technology, science, new media, academia, government, public policy and more.

Friday’s debut installment of Inter-Sections: The Architect in Conversation, starting at 6 p.m., offers a conversation on building for art between internationally acclaimed architect Preston Scott Cohen and Parrish Art Museum Director Terrie Sultan. The two luminaries will discuss the ramifications and considerations that come into play when building specifically for art, such as cultural context and tensions, audiences and collections, as well as new roles of museums and unconventional approaches to presenting art.

Cohen is the Chair of the Department of Architecture and the Gerald M. McCue Professor of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He won the competition to design the Herta and Paul Amir Building, an innovative structure that has become an international landmark at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

With more than 30 years of experience as a museum professional, Sultan knows quite a lot about building for art. She was appointed Director of the Parrish in 2008 and oversaw the creation of the museum’s 34,400-square-foot, $30 million Herzog & de Meuron building in Water Mill, from design conception through completion of construction.

Cohen will sign his book Lightfall: Genealogy of a Museum: Paul and Herta Amir Building, Tel Aviv Museum of Art after the talk.

“Inter-Sections will take architects beyond the focus of their discipline and engage them in conversations with practitioners and thinkers from other fields,” Parrish Curator of Special Projects Corinne Erni says. “The Parrish will become a hub for innovative ideas that stimulate thinking and debate about the critical design and building issues of our times, with a focus on the East End put in broader, global contexts and perspectives.”

Following Friday’s event, the next Inter-Section is scheduled for Sunday, April 30 at 2 p.m. Organized in collaboration with the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, the program will feature a screening of Matt Tyrnauer’s documentary Citizen Jane: Battle for the City. The film chronicles the battle waged by legendary writer and urban activist Jane Jacobs to save historic New York City neighborhoods from the drastic redevelopment plans of power broker Robert Moses in the 1960s. A Q&A with special guests will follow the screening.

The Friday, June 9 program was developed in conjunction with Landscape Pleasures, the museum’s annual garden symposium. Architects and landscape designers will address questions such as: How can landscape design successfully weave together human activity, natural forces and the built environment? How can architects and landscape designers work together in a more holistic context and implement low-impact and regenerative projects? Can practitioners in these disciplines help the community connect with nature’s elements—soil, water, air, plants and animals—in new and creative ways?

On Friday, September 22, the Parrish will present symposia on water and climate change in conjunction with the museum’s special exhibition Platform: Clifford Ross Light | Waves. Artists, architects, designers, policymakers, farmers, fishermen, technologists and scientists from the East End and beyond will explore water as an artistic inspiration as well as a resource threatened by climate change through panels, talks, and World Café workshops. The emphasis of the symposia will be cross-disciplinary exchanges and collaborations, and an examination of how experts in the creative and scientific fields can create solutions for water management and protection.

The Parrish Art museum is located at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. Call 631-283-2118 or visit parrishart.org.