“The transformational design walks a delicate line, as Tehrani admits, between framing the pieces—metallurgy, textiles, sarcophagi, statuary—in their correct capacity and giving the context its material specificity, without trying to upstage the work. […] But the project is part of a bigger discussion that rescripts the narrative of ancient cultures. By attempting to evoke these various realities through character, affect, color, materiality, and immersive space, NADAAA’s intervention enters into the complex discussion of what role a museum plays in today’s world.” – Patrick McGraw
The character of this project derives much more directly from its social and cultural context than most of our other projects. The nod to the vernacular serves as a foil for anamorphic moments where the traditional is cast in a new light.
Architizer’s editors ask Nader about the biggest challenges of the Adams Library project, lessons learned, and his favorite project details. Read on HERE.
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Curbed’s Diana Budds asks Nader about his first job in New York, his favorite places in the city, what he would change about the field of architecture, and what to do in a creative rut. Check out Nader’s 21 Questions HERE.
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Today, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum announced the 23rd class of National Design Award winners, honored for design innovation and impact. The 2022 Design Visionary award has been given to Nader Tehrani for his “profound contribution to advancing the field”.
“This year’s National Design Award winners reflect the central role that design can play in addressing some of the most urgent needs of our time. Attuned to increasing social and planetary challenges, all awardees, regardless of their category, have a regenerative approach to design work that takes into account our shared future. I’m grateful to our thoughtful jury this year for their selection. Their deliberations revealed that behind each winner is a philosophy of work that expertly weaves together technological innovation while elevating traditional craft, or that prioritizes preservation and reparation processes, ultimately designing for citizens, and not consumers—a reason for hope in today’s complex world if there ever was one.”
– Maria Nicanor, director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
More information on the National Design Awards and this year’s awardees can be found on Cooper Hewitt’s website HERE and in Smithsonian Magazine HERE.
Miguel Guitart’s new book Approaching Architecture: Three Fields, One Discipline has been released for pre-order and includes a foreword by Nader Tehrani and contributions from 18 globally diverse teams of architects.
Mathias Agbo Jr. recently interviewed Nader Tehrani and Moody Nolan’s Darius Somers on our collaboration for the new ANEC Galleries for The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rendering by NADAAA, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“For us at NADAAA, this is a new type of project entirely, and thus, it offers opportunities many other projects cannot… This has been an opportunity to put aside our authorship and look at the collection itself as the basis of inspiration: to build the project from the artifacts, and their relationship to their audiences.”
“The tower’s distinctive appearance stems from a brilliant combination of technical know-how to meet the structural requirements and ingenious artistic flair.” Read more from Luca Maria Francesco Fabris (including his comparison of Site 4 to a mochaccino!) in the current issue of The Plan HERE.
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Mark Lamster writes for Architectural Record: ‘The new Adams Street Branch of the Boston Public Library, which opened last summer in the working-class municipality of Dorchester, is pleasing (if a bit of an odd duck), a work of inventive geometries that fits neatly into its low-rise context. The library’s quirky form was the product of a lengthy community-design process, one that forced the architects, Boston-based NADAAA, to rethink its original proposal for the building. The stumbling block was a large oak tree at the north end of the site, which runs along Adams Street, Dorchester’s primary commercial strip. The Boston Public Library wanted it removed, to create a tabula rasa for the new building, and the architects followed that directive. The community, however, desired the tree to stay put, and made that clear in no uncertain terms. In turn, NADAAA founding principal, Nader Tehrani, embraced this “productive friction,” as he calls it, redrawing the plan with the tree as a focal point.’
NADAAA is happy to announce that ‘My House is Better than Your House’ has been released by ORO Editions. A special thanks goes to all who helped make this book happen!
‘The house is commonly used as a vehicle to get at larger architectural debates. Such is the case in this book, with a dialogue between Nader Tehrani and Preston Scott Cohen whose collaboration in academia has often resulted in two very different approaches to pedagogy. In this discussion, Tehrani draws from central themes within Cohen’s pedagogy to design a house as a response to the preoccupations that drive many of these debates. Adopting Villa Varoise as the main protagonist, the book draws on many architectures to situate the predicaments behind geometry, typology, and the architectural anomaly, among other things, as productive instruments for a broader cultural discussion on architecture.’
Purchase your copy HERE. For a limited time, the book is available at 20% off HERE.
Rendering by NADAAA, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
NADAAA is pleased to announce our work with The Metropolitan Museum of Art to redesign their Ancient Near East and Cypriot galleries. NADAAA is working in collaboration with Moody Nolan on the $40 million, 15,000 square foot project. Our team is working closely with Museum construction leadership and curators Kim Benzel and Seán Hemingway to develop the design.
“At The Met, architecture serves as the cultural armature for the display of art. Nader Tehrani and NADAAA’s contemporary approach to materials such as clay and metal—which are foundational to the world views of both ancient West Asia and Cyprus—and their partnership with Moody Nolan, a firm renowned for their work with peer institutions and marginalized communities, make this team ideally suited for this complex project.”
-Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli, Head of Construction at The Met
“It’s an honor to be selected for this project, which will address the need for more diverse narratives in the displays of art from the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean regions. In bringing disparate layers of the Museum’s architectural history into dialogue, the proposed design hopes to bring the formal, spatial, and material properties of these galleries into alignment with The Museum’s mission. By working in collaboration with The Met’s curatorial and construction teams, we’ll be able to recondition these spaces while facilitating the connection between cultures, civilizations, and geographies to tell a whole new story.”
