Panel discussion: ‘Eileen Gray’s Villa E-1027 – An Icon of Modernist Architecture’
Wednesday 12nd September of 2018, 7 p.m., Ivorypress, C/Comandante Zorita 46-48.
On the occasion of the Kasper Akhøj’s first exhibition in Spain, Welcome (To The Teknival), on 12 September of 2018 Ivorypress hosted the panel discussion “Eileen Gray’s Villa E-1027 – An Icon of Modernist Architecture”, with the participation of the artist Kasper Akhoj; Alberto Campo Baeza, Architect and Professor of Projects at the School of Architecture of Madrid; Elisabetta Emina, curator; Martha Thorne, Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design; and Elena Ochoa Foster, founder and CEO of Ivorypress.
Kasper Akhøj
Artist, Copenhagen (Denmark)
Kasper Akhøj (Copenhagen, 1976) works primarily with sculpture, film and photography. He studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, Germany and at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. The artist completed the Whitney Independent Study Program, in New York, in 2009.
He has held recent solo exhibitions at Nouveau Musee National de Monaco (MC), The De La Warr Pavilion (UK), Albright-Knox Art Gallery (US), Baltimore Museum of Art (US), Wiels Center for Contemporary Art (BE), a.o. His work has also been shown at LACMA – Los Angeles County Museum of Art (US), The 55th and 56th Venice Biennials, The 28th and 31st Sao Paulo Biennials, The 11th Sharjah Biennial, and MoMA PS1 a.o. In 2018 he won the FAENA ART PRIZE together with Brazilian artist Tamar Guimaraes, and will have forthcoming solo exhibitions at the Faena Art Museums in Buenos Aires and Miami, as well as participate in group exhibitions at MMAC Museo Morelense in Mexico and at HdKW in Berlin a.o.
His work is part of the collections of Museo National Reina Sofia, Madrid; FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Nantes; Nuveau Musee National de Monaco a.o.
Alberto Campo Baeza
Professor and architect, Madrid (Spain)
Alberto Campo Baeza is a professor in the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, ETSAM. He has taught at the ETH in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Kansas State University, the CUA University in Washington, and in 2016, L’Ecole d’Architecture in Tournai, Belgium. He was named 2017 Clarkson Chair in Architecture at Buffalo University, New York. More recently, in 2018, he has been teaching at the Technische Universität Wien, Vienna, Austria.
He has given lectures all over the world and has received significant recognition, such as the Premio Eduardo Torroja for the headquarters of the Caja General de Ahorros de Granada, and the Excellence in Teaching Award of the UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid). In 2013 he was awarded the Heinrich Tessenow Gold Medal, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the International Architecture Award in Stone in Verona and, in 2014, the RIBA International Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Also in 2014 he was elected full member to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Spain. In 2015, he was awarded the BigMat 2015 in Berlin and the International Prize of Spanish Architecture (PAEI 2015). In addition, he won a public competition in France for the new extension to the Louvre Museum in Liévin (ex aequo Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners). In 2018 he was given the honorary degree Doctor Honoris Causa by the San Pablo CEU University, and has received the Piranesi Prix de Rome.
Elisabetta Emina-Gaspard
Guide speaker for Cap Moderne, Roquebrune-Cap-Martin (France)
Member of the cultural association ‘Eileen Gray, Etoile de mer and Le Corbusier’
In this beautiful place, open to the public via booking at the Cap Moderne website, Elisabetta Emina-Gaspard is the main guide, known as the ‘guide speaker’ (with professional accreditation issued by the French department of culture). She has worked for 20 years in the commune of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, the first 16 of which were spent as a guide and consultant at the tourist office.
She is therefore very familiar with the site, especially since her great grandmother worked at Villa E1027 for Eileen Gray’s lover, Jean Badovici. Since 2014 she has worked at the Cap Moderne site in its new opening to the public. The site is managed by an association chaired by Michael Likierman (in office until 2020), which collaborates with a heritage architect and scientific team on conservation of the site. The opening to the public has been managed since 2018 by the centre for national monuments. This organisation will take over the complete management of the site from 2020. The owner of Cap Moderne is the Conservatoire du littoral.
She is also a member of the board of directors for the cultural association ‘Eileen Gray, Etoile de mer and Le Corbusier’. The association organises cultural events such as concerts, conferences, literary meeting, workshops and school visits.
Martha Thorne
Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, Madrid (Spain)
Since 2005, Martha Thorne has served as the executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Her interests have always focused on international contemporary architecture, cities in evolution, and changes in the role of the architect.
Prior to joining IE University she was associate curator of the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the co-author of the books Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture and Skyscrapers: The New Millennium, editor and author for The Pritzker Architecture Prize: The First Twenty Years, and author of numerous articles for architectural journals and encyclopaedias.
Martha Thorne received a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Affairs from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Elena Foster
Founder and CEO, Ivorypress, Madrid, Spain
Elena Ochoa Foster is a publisher and curator. She founded Ivorypress in 1996.
As a patron, she supports a variety of museums and foundations and collaborates with several international schools of contemporary art and photography. She is the Chair of the Council of the Serpentine Galleries in London, and serves as Correspondent Academician in Switzerland for the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid.
Elena Ochoa Foster was a tenured Professor at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid for almost two decades. She was a Fulbright Scholar and researcher in several universities in the United States and Europe.