Urban Culture Institute Blog - Urban Culture Institute

Agustina Woodgate of Kulturpark Berlin in Whitney Biennial 2019

3/2/2019

Congratulations to Agustina Woodgate who is featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. Agustina was a team member of the Kulturpark Berlin team just a couple of years ago. Kudos also go to Anthony Spinello of Spinello Projects in Miami, the master mind behind our outreach and grassroots fundraising campaign. We overcame great challenges along the way but prevailed thanks to the incredible support of an amazing community of creatives on both sides of the Atlantic.

Agustina ran the Kulturpark radio station during our Kulturpark project at the Spreepark, the abandoned theme park in Berlin's east. The newly developed master plan for the park envisions the first culture park in Europe––a vision we initially developed. She has been continuing to broadcast worldwide via her radioee.net.

Download the 2019 Whitney Biennial Press Release.

Boston Harbor Heroes Award for South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition

4/4/2018

Save the Harbor / Save the Bay bestowed its annual Boston Harbor Heroes awards at a gala evening held in the grand ballroom of the Seaport Hotel on March 29, 2018. Among others, the South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition was honored for its "vision, tenacity and commitment to connecting Boston's neighborhoods to Boston Harbor and each other." Under the leadership of coalition founder, Michael Tyrrell, the team of David Giangrande, Christina Lanzl, Ann McQueen, Tom Parks, the late Bill Pressley and his wife Marion, Candelaria Silva and Bob Wells envisioned the South Bay Harbor Trail (SBHT) as part of a larger trail network that connects the Southwest Corridor Park from Jamaica Plain to the Boston Harborwalk downtown and in South Boston. Buoys salvaged and reconditioned by the US Coast Guard serve as markers and a playful reminder of Boston's rich maritime history. Main goal is to reconnect communities divided by major traffic arteries via an easily accessible, multi-use bicycle and pedestrian path. The first of a series of SBHT Buoys was dedicated along the Harborwalk in Fort Point Channel in November 2008. Funding for public art planning along the trail was provided by the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund of the City of Boston. Other funders include the ISTEA program, MassDOT, the New England Foundation for the Arts as well as private donors. Overall construction of the SBHT is underway as of spring 2018.

About the South Bay Harbor Trail
The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition, in partnership with Save the Harbor / Save the Bay, municipal and state agencies, partnered to plan and build the 3.5 mile-long, multi-use South Bay Harbor Trail which, when completed, will connect Roxbury, the South End, Chinatown, Fort Point Channel and South Boston to each other and to Boston Harbor.

The South Bay Harbor Trail is one of the most important and exciting initiatives in the city connecting our inland neighborhoods to Boston Harbor. The Trail will link people to the recreational resources of a revitalized Boston Harbor and to the economic opportunities of a prospering waterfront. Residents from Boston’s diverse neighborhoods will have the opportunity to share in a cultural exchange.

The South Bay Harbor Trail will provide an important link in the larger transportation network by connecting with existing streets and trails such as the Southwest Corridor and Melnea Cass Boulevard. It will also serve as a critical link in a citywide greenway, connecting trails from Fenway, the Southwest Corridor, Charles River Park, Broadway Bridge, Fort Point Channel and the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

The South Bay Harbor Trail Coalition includes community groups, environmental organizations, the City of Boston, property owners, developers, and residents. It is governed by a steering committee which is comprised of coalition members representing every neighborhood through which the Trail will pass. The Coalition receives organizational, fundraising, and technical assistance from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.

The Coalition worked together with Pressley Associates, a Cambridge-based landscape architecture firm, and Design Consultants Inc., a Somerville-based engineering firm, to develop the engineering and design master plans that will link various completed segments of the trail into a contiguous, single trail system/experience.

Lunchtime Conversation on Placemaking

3/13/2018

Christina Lanzl and Anne-Catrin Schultz presented a faculty lecture on placemaking, which introduced the Placemaking Manifesto, which they co-authored and issued together with Robert Tullis and members of the Boston Society of Architects/AIA Placemaking Network in fall 2017. Lanzl and Schultz highlighted placemaking principles outlined in the Manifesto by discussing a series of case studies from their professional practice.

The Lunchtime Conversation faculty lecture series is coordinated by Associate Professor Antonio Furgiuele, Department of Architecture within the College of Architecture, Design & Construction Management at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts.

Placemaking Manifesto Issued November 2017

11/1/2017

Placemaking is about sense of place. Everybody – people of all backgrounds, ages and abilities – can participate in creating successful public places. Everyone can serve the agenda of excellence in design, healthy communities and thriving neighborhoods. Our built environment is a common good that comes alive through an understanding of how humans instinctively relate to space, design leadership that leverages it, and activity programming that capitalizes on it. The BSA Placemaking Network celebrates its 10-year anniversary with the release of the Placemaking Manifesto. To solicit community input the Manifesto was launched at a public writers' workshop with the co-authors, Christina Lanzl, Robert Tullis and Anne-Catrin Schultz at BSA Space in Boston on October 23, 2017.

The Placemaking Network explores what it takes to further the creation of high-quality, distinctive public places. Participants of the public Placemaking Manifesto review at BSA Space on October 23, 2017 were Placemaking Manifesto co-authors Christina Lanzl, Robert Tullis and Anne-Catrin Schultz as well as Polly Carpenter/BSA Foundation, A. Vernon Woodworth/AIAMA Board of Directors, Anthony Clayton, Deborah Fennick, Kathryn Firth, Júlia Hilário, Marek Jacisin, Victoria LaGuette, Doris Martinez, Neil McCann, Stephanie Osser, Sergio Arturo Perez, Coco Raynes, Eric Reinhard, Renata von Tscharner, Sara Wermiel, Douglas Wohn and Claudia Zarazua

The Placemaking Manifesto
Placemaking transforms space into place. Our public realm is a common good that comes alive through an understanding of how humans instinctively relate to place, design leadership that leverages it, and active programs for and by communities as a civic benefit for everyone. Placemaking activates our built and lived environment. We acknowledge and actively work towards improving hard as well as soft quality of life factors.
Placemaking = Quality of Life

Placemaking engages the five senses. It is about developing and continuing identity, distinctive, specific and memorable character in our public spaces. It’s about fostering a sense of place: our body-mind’s positive kinesthetic, emotional and cognitive experience in, and in relationship to our public surroundings. It’s achieved by putting the importance of our shared, exterior spaces between buildings above that of our private, interior spaces within them. We recognize that storytelling gives meaning to our lives and is therefore an important narrative device of human civilization.
Placemaking = A Sense of Place

Placemaking is about the benefits that accrue to us, our neighbors, our community, and even our culture when we engage with each other in a high-quality and healthy public realm. Including public participation in its design and use helps create community identification. Active programming, public events, and public art are powerful tools that help foster community pride.
Placemaking = Caring About the Community

Placemaking integrates the individualized focus of disciplines such as architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, public art, and community cultural programming; and supersedes their boundaries by focusing on collaboration, communication and place instead of isolated projects, bringing together individuals of all backgrounds, interests and talents.
Placemaking = Collaboration and Communication

Placemaking embraces inclusivity by offering a universal platform for discourse. Everyone is a maker of place. Everyone can serve the agenda of excellence in design, supportive environments, healthy communities, and thriving neighborhoods. In a high-quality public realm, we shed our individual bubbles and participate in a life of greater civic engagement.
Placemaking = Active Participation

Placemaking combines an awareness of tradition with an embracing of new and emerging technologies. It respects time-tested rules of form and space, but also employs the research, development and innovation along with contemporary digital and social media tools to further community building.
Placemaking = Tradition and Innovation

Download the Placemaking Manifesto
Download the Oct. 23, 2017 Writers' Workshop Notes
Download the Authors' Biographies
See the Jan. 2, 2018 article on ArchDaily
Download the Letter to the Editor of ArchDaily

Urban Culture Institute Wins Award

9/28/2017

The Urban Culture Institute is the proud recipient of a 2017
Businesswoman Award from CV Magazine for Best Woman-Run Arts & Culture Initiative 2017 in the Northeastern United States. The dedication and hard work of the entire team at the Urban Culture Institute contributed to this achievement. Many thanks to Dieta Sixt, Stephanie Sherman, Ricardo Barreto and Anne Marie Purkey Levine for all their hard work.

The Urban Culture Institute stands out because it is deeply rooted in community. Christina Lanzl's philosophy is to "listen and enable". The Institute's practice is creative and multidisciplinary, working with diverse clients, communities and institutions, artists, design teams and professionals in the creative and service sectors. Expertise and projects range from advisory services and public art facilitation to cultural planning and public engagement. Projects typically bring together a range of diverse partners and communities, offering opportunities to come together and find consensus, an undertaking that is often delicate and fraught with challenges. Lanzl observes that keeping the goal in mind is crucial to achieve a positive outcome, for the greater benefit of all.

Through its work, the Urban Culture Institute brings together and enables people of all backgrounds and abilities to fulfill the desire for an improved quality of life, the enhancement of cultural economic development and creative placemaking. The Institute facilitates the development of high quality arts and cultural assets, helping others by bringing expertise and resources to the table: a unique combination of curatorial expertise, savvy and efficient process with an eye towards positive outcomes for the built environment and economic impacts.

CV Magazine notes that its Awards are based on merit:
"To ensure this, our in-house research team will go in-depth to find the industry firms and leaders who deserve acknowledgement for their outstanding performances within the sector. Winners of this award can rest assured that their win was one that was truly deserved."

Read the editorial on page 11 of the Award Supplement.

Fort Point and Seaport Forum

9/22/2015

Fort Point and Seaport Neighborhood Forum on the Arts, Culture and Planning at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

The neighborhood forum of Boston’s historic Fort Point and the Seaport District at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) on October 22, 2015 focussed on the arts, culture and planning. The event was organized by Mayor Walsh’s administration in partnership with the Fort Point Arts Community, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Urban Culture Institute.

The Fort Point and Seaport Forum brought together leaders, residents, artists and professionals from Fort Point and the Seaport as well as from other Boston communities for an informal conversation on neighborhood life and planning initiatives of the City of Boston.

ICA Executive Director Jill Medvedow welcomed the speakers and attendees, followed by a brief overview of ICA history and programs. This important cultural institution with a 80-year history moved to the waterfront in 2006. Contemporary art in all media—visual arts, performance, film, video, and literature—and educational programs foster an appreciation for contemporary art.

Jen Mecca, Chair of the Board of Directors introduced the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC). Founded in 1980, FPAC has developed three artist live/work buildings at 249 A Street and at 300 Summer Street as well as the Midway Studios on Channel Center Street. FPAC hosted the 36th Annual Open Studios in October, complemented by two other open studio weekends every year in the spring and during the holiday season. FPAC also operates the FPAC Gallery, the Made in Fort Point artist store, and offers numerous other programs.

Christina Lanzl, co-founder of the Urban Culture Institute, gave an overview of her 20-year history in Fort Point and highlighted current projects in partnership with the City of

Boston, the MBTA and FPAC. She then introduced the speakers and facilitated the question-and-answer session following the presentations.

City of Boston presenters were Julie Burros, Chief of Arts and Culture, John Fitzgerald, Deputy Director of Imagine Boston 2030, and Rich McGuinness, Deputy Director of Waterfront Planning. The speakers introduced their plans and vision for Fort Point and the Seaport, followed by a discussion with attendees. The goal of the forum was to engage a group of
diverse community members for a joint conversation and to
further communications within the area and with the City administration. It also provided an opportunity for residents of both historic Fort Point and the emerging Seaport to meet each other.

Richard McGuinness shared his current work on the downtown waterfront and his insights on the series of planning projects he completed for the Boston Redevelopment Authority in Fort Point and the Seaport from 2000 to 2015. He concluded his remarks with lessons learned and inspirations drawn from a recently completed research trip to Seattle.

Julie Burros gave an update on the ongoing Boston Creates city-wide cultural plan, which is expected to build a shared vision for arts and culture for the first time in the city's history. Of note are her plans to update the BRA's Artist Certification program and to increase the number of artist housing units. To bolster the capacity of the office of Arts and Culture, a new planner has been added to the team in October 2015.

John Fitzgerald, the Deputy Director of Imagine Boston 2030, introduced the recently launched municipal urban design plan. The City's last master plan was completed 50 years ago. A robust community participation process is part of this initiative, similar to the cultural plan process.

Many thanks to the hosts and presenters, as well as Kelly Gifford and Kate Shamon of the ICA and Urban Culture Institute Fellows, Thu Ngan Han and Hilary Buskirk of Stantec.

Case Studies: Public Art and Architecture in Airports

9/18/2015

Oct 1, 2015 | 6–8pm
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02210

Anyone who's passed through Logan Airport Terminal C’s Parking Lobby has witnessed first-hand the extraordinary, multi-sensory work of Christopher Janney and his team at PhenomenArts, Inc. Its design allows the audio experience to provide another dimension to place making and public art. This is achieved while also being fully integrated with the needs of a major transportation infrastructure.

Christopher and his professional colleagues will speak about their work in the US and Europe, including Logan Airport, Miami International, and the recently announced LaGuardia Airport renovation.

Participants on the panel:
- Christopher Janney, Artist/Director, PhenomenArts, Inc.
- Camille Bechara P.E., WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff
- Christina Lanzl, PhD | Co-Founder, Urban Culture Institute

The evening is a program of the Urban Design Committee at the Boston Society of Architects. Please join co-chairs Paul Lukez FAIA, Patrick Tedesco AIA & Meera Deean for a lively discussion about the role of multi-sensory public art and architecture in contemporary Airports.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. To register send an email with "Urban Design Committee" in the subject line to rsvp@architects.org.

Chelsea Art Walk

6/13/2015

Chelsea Art Walk in Chelsea, MA from June 13 to 14, 2015

Chelsea artists and friends are exhibiting their work this weekend from 12 noon to 6 pm. Ten exhibitions at ten locations include the Gallery @ Spencer Lofts, the Historic 1657 Bellingham-Carey House (a former governor's mansion) and One North (a residential building). Those who like good coffee should stop by for a well-brewed cup and see the show at The Chelsea City Cafe & Gallery, where one meets local artists and a pleasant coffee crowd. For the beer fans, Mystic Brewery offers micro-brews, food and the exhibition "Street Art".

Port Park at 99 Marginal Street is a favorite spot. A curated selection of videos on jumbo screens can be viewed inside two shipping containers next to the basketball court. Filmmaker Allison Cekala's 27-minute video, Fundir, narrates the story of the giant salt pile sited adjacent to Port Park story. The film documents the mining of the road salt in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and ends with the municipal facility's routines during the seasons.

Port Park is a brand new waterfront hangout with great views of the Tobin Bridge and surrounding harbor-side. The design by Landing Studio of Somerville, MA features industrial remnants unique to Chelsea's history as an industrial harbor. Old truck load racks have been turned into look-outs and giant skeletons of former oil tanks now bound an amphitheater and a water play area.

More info on the Chelsea Art Walk at chelseaartwalk.com.

The Mather School Green Space Improvement Project in Dorchester

4/20/2015

The City of Boston is the proud home to one of the oldest public schools in the country: the Mather School. This exciting Green Space Improvement Project will result in the creation of a permanent public art installation with surrounding landscape improvements. The permanent project will be located at the Church Street entrance of the building. The area is highly visible, very active and serves as an important bridge between the school and the surrounding neighborhood. The aim of the project is to transform the existing greenspace and its surroundings into a more welcoming, comfortable public site and functional school entrance.

A search to find artists/designers for this project is currently underway. Artists, designers or teams comprised of an artist and a landscape architect are invited to forward their qualifications for this exciting public art and improvement project by May 22nd. As this is a historic site with many uses, collaborative teams of artists and landscape architects or a landscape architect with expertise in public art are particularly encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to local and regional applications.

This project is a collaborative effort between the City of Boston's Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust (BF), the Boston Art Commission (BAC), the Boston Public School Department, the Mather School Parent Council, and the Art Selection Committee of the Green Space Improvement Project. Christina Lanzl of the Urban Culture Institute is facilitating the project.

A $200,000 budget is anticipated. The project will be funded in part by the Edward Ingersoll Browne Trust Fund, a public charitable trust administered by the City of Boston Trust Office. Three shortlisted finalists will receive $3,000 honoraria for initial concept development and presentation.

Deadline for submission of qualifications is May 22, 2015 at 1:59pm EST. The full Request for Qualifications (RFQ) can be downloaded here. Contact Christina Lanzl, Urban Culture Institute, with questions related to the project.

Fifty Years in the Studio: Richard Bertman, Artist and Architect

2/3/2015

by Christina Lanzl

Richard J. Bertman’s oeuvre encompasses fifty years of sculptures in welded steel, wire, fabric and carved wood as well as pen-and-ink drawings. His studio work is complemented by a distinguished career in architecture as founding principal of CBT Inc., a Boston firm of international stature co-founded by Bertman, Maurice Childs and Charles Tseckares in 1967. Bertman was educated at Harvard University (B.A. 1956), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.Arch. 1961), and the University of California at Berkeley (M.Arch. 1965).

As an artist, Richard Bertman is best known for his whimsical mechanical sculptures. He has also created several hundred exquisite pen-and-ink drawings of architectural icons he drew locally and on travels around the globe. Bertman began sculpting during his graduate studies at Berkeley. Early pieces were exhibited at the University of California’s Worth Ryder Museum in 1965, and as part of the “Search for Young Talent” juried surveys sponsored by the Massachusetts Cultural Council in 1966/67, at the Fitchburg, Framingham, and Worcester Art Museums. The effort of starting and developing an architecture practice resulted in his working privately for many years but in 1988 he began exhibiting his work again. Solo shows were mounted by the MIT Museum (1990), Boston’s St. Botolph Club (1995), and by the Boston Center for the Arts (2010), among other venues.

Though the human form has been Bertman’s focus, his work ranges from figurative to abstract. Particularly the early, small-scale sculptures appear like three-dimensional spatial drawings. His early, abstract works show the influence of abstract expressionist sculptor David Smith and surrealist Alberto Giacometti, particularly the latter’s concern with the figure in space, as in Metamorphosis (1965) (Ill. 1). The early cubist forms of modest scale are clustered assemblies of steel rods in parallel arrangement, suspending form in a spatial framework.

In the 1980s, Bertman removed the exterior frameworks. The resulting, figurative wire sculptures of heads portray the artist’s immediate family and personal friends. Facial features evolve from minimalist wire constructions, using bent strands of wire to create form. The portrait series in bent wire or welded steel rod include likenesses of well-known Bostonians, such as patrons of the arts, Sandy and David Bakalar (1994) (Ill. 2), Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell (1997), developer and known art collector Bruce Beal (1998), as well as former Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis and his wife Kitty (2009).

Also in the 1980s, Bertman began creating his first kinetic sculptures, with movement driven either by hand or by an electric motor. The mechanical works were preceded by first experiments with moving parts during the mid-1960s. Humor often is an element of the artist’s mature kinetic sculptures, evidencing his wit, and inviting us to ponder the bright side of life while speaking to the humanity in us all. Rainmaker (1985) is a bicycle-like contraption with a series of mechanical and twisting components that pokes fun at our superstitions. A humorous self-portrait called Worried Man (Ill. 3) follows in 1989. This piece is both a self-portrait – a wire sculpture – and introduces a kinetic and a sound component. Worried Man’s face, limited to eyes, nose and mouth, is mounted on a white box that contains an electric motor and a tape recorder. At the push of a button, the facial features move, performing the “Worried Man Blues” recorded by the artist himself. Another wall-mounted wire sculpture, Marriage (1990) (Ill. 4), features a couple's babbling conversation, similar to Worried Man. Both works are humorous commentaries on everyday life.

An increase in scale marks the mature works of the 1990s and later. Bertman took up wood carving for his eight-foot tall Family Portrait (1991) (Ill. 5), a whimsical abstraction of his family inspired by Native American totem poles he encountered traveling in the Pacific Northwest. Continually introducing a broader range of materials and more technical feats, the mechanical sculpture, First Attempts at a Bionic Man (1994, revised 2009) (Ill. 6), consists of a life-size figure suspended in a steel frame. Motion is activated by the push of a button that brings the silver-painted wood sculpture to life, as the exposed wires and pulleys are activated through an electrical motor. This “contraption”, as the artist affectionately refers to his mechanical sculptures, visualizes movement on two parallel tracks, first, utilizing the limbs and head, and second, in the series of levers clearly visible behind the figure. The mechanics are deliberately exposed, unlike those of his earlier Worried Man. First Attempts at a Bionic Man is both funny and a sardonic reference to constraints, technology and progress. Other major kinetic sculptures are Searching for Leonardo (2002) (Ill. 7), Fish (2004), Hootchy Kootchy (2005), Contraption (2007) and Symphony #1 (2011).

Bertman references concepts like movement, space and flight in the form of humans, animals and machines. Searching for Leonardo (Ill. 7) was inspired by Leonardo DaVinci’s renderings of flying machines, which Bertman animates through an electric motor activated by a foot switch, offering the user control in an interactive gesture. In addition, by exposing mechanical parts to the viewer, motion becomes transparent and accessible. This way, the creator also becomes educator, broadening our understanding of technology and science with a touch of comedy and magic. This interest continues to inspire Bertman’s latest studio project of a mechanical drum set in his continued path of artistic inquiry.