Queer Assemblies

Queer Assemblies, an art installation and research project by New Affiliates’ Jaffer Kolb and Ivi Diamantopoulou, reinterprets Bruce Goff’s iconic style. Openly gay and a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, Goff’s architecture was modernism in drag: hyperbolic and expressive, constructed with war industry excesses, dollar store trinkets, and materials too cheap for minimalist taste standards. 

Kolb and Diamantopoulou work with MIT students to study Goff’s archival drawings and design new abstract interpretations of his assemblies. A series of representations and ultimately an immersive installation will be developed from the drawings to evoke the aesthetics of three houses designed by Goff. The project aims to understand his ethos, techniques, and methods to produce a new work that is referential, novel, and immersive. The installation and exploratory drawings will capture how Goff’s totalizing vision unified an eclectic palette into a cohesive whole.

Jaffer Kolb’s work explores how architecture is shaped by, and shapes, local economies and political systems through its practice and its form. He is the co-founder and principal of the award-winning architecture practice New Affiliates, where he currently works with branches of the New York City government to identify alternative forms of reuse through public infrastructures. In addition to residential and commercial projects, the studio also collaborates on installations and exhibitions with a range of international museums and cultural institutions.  

Biography: MIT Department of Architecture
Website: jafferkolb.com and New Affiliates

Ivi Diamantopoulou is an architect in New York and Greece, with nearly two decades of experience designing and realizing built work. She is the co-founder of New Affiliates and the academic program director of Syracuse University’s School of Architecture program in New York City. 

Biography: Syracuse University School of Architecture
Website: New Affiliates