A west coast exploration of the cremation urn as an architectural object. Curated by Greg Lundgren.
Lundgren Monuments in association with Vital 5 Productions presented The Architect and the Urn – a west coast exploration of the cremation urn as architectural object, June 3 – July 18, 2010. Twenty-five architects from Seattle to Los Angeles approached the design and concept of housing human ash in this complex and conceptually rich exhibition.
Americans have an unhealthy relationship with death and remembrance. Death care has become a multi-billion dollar industry almost devoid of artists, designers and architects. Instead it is clogged with mass produced plastic urns and heavy, uninspired blocks of imported granite. With the choice of cremation on the rise, more and more of our departed friends and family are returning to us in the form of ash. In the design savvy culture that we live in, it is amazing how few interesting choices exist for us to address this transformed matter. The Architect and the Urn exhibition is assembled to approach this social trend and help fortify the ideas and forms that define our very last residence.
The Architect and the Urn exhibit opened in downtown Seattle on June 3, 2010. The exhibit was significant in that it represented the first time in history that a group of architects focused their talents on the cremation urn as an architectural object. The exhibition featured full-scale, functional urns, prototypes, renderings, technical drawings and other conceptual-based works.
Featuring works by: Iole Alessandrini, Jo…sh Brevoort, Ian Cambell and Lisa Chun, Ian Butcher, Brian Cavanaugh, Lisa Chadbourne and Daren Doss, Brendan Connolly, Chris Butler and Ron van der Veen, Alec Duncan, Kevin Eckert and Andrew van Leeuwen, Prentis Hale and Thomas Schaer, Rob Hutchison and Tom Maul, Larry Rouch, Alex Scheweder and Khadija Z Carroll, George Suyama and Jay Deguchi, Taiji Miyasaka, Andy Higgins, Jennifer Gilman, Coy Howard, Tarek Naga, Lorcan O’Herlihy, Eric Kahn, Russell N. Thomsen, Ramiro Diaz-Granados, Heather Flood, Linda Taalman and Alan Koch.
