From Storefront to AA
John Hill
5. mars 2018
Center: Eva Franch i Gilabert
The Architectural Association Search Committee has announced its selection of Eva Franch i Gilabert, the Chief Curator and Executive Director of the Storefront for Art and Architecture, as the next Director of the AA School.
Although the AA School Community's recommendation will not result in a formal appointment until the AA Council carries out its final contractual obligations, the appointment is basically gauranteed, given that Eva Franch gathered 67% of 1,077 votes, compared with around 16% each for both Pippio Ciorra and Robert Mull. The three finalists were announced last month.
The choice is not a surprise to World-Architects, who interviewed Franch after her keynote at the 2016 Vectorworks Design Summit and has attended many of the Storefront-related exhibitions and events she has created. She is a fount of energy and a strong voice in the architectural community, with an emphasis on architecture's relationship with social, political, and economical forces. In 2014, she co-curated OfficeUS, the US Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which aimed at producing a new space of architectural practice and produced three books in the process.
An announcement from the AA includes a couple quotes from Franch during her presentation to the school on February 22:
Eva Franch follows Alvin Boyarsky, Alan Balfour, Mohsen Mostafavi, and Brett Steele as AA Directors.Directing the AA is not about being a director, but directing a project, a pedagogical project that has consequences within the knowledge production of architecture and contemporary culture.
The AA possesses an unparalleled combination of rigor and madness, one that should be nourished and cultivated in order to continue to defy the limits of the possible – and the impossible.