Mimi Zeiger

Critic, editor, curator and instigator.

On Saturday, October 22, from 11am-3pm, the Architecture Lobby will host a “Think-In” at UCLA, where invited panelists and a professional facilitator will critically debate and discuss topics most integral to the aims of the Architecture Lobby, including: architecture labor and labor rights, the pros/cons of professionalization, the perceptions of architects within the media, and emerging pedagogical models. The Think-In is free and open to the public, and all interested students, academics, or practitioners are strongly encouraged to join the discussion.

Panelists:
Frances Anderton, KCRW (DnA, Design and Architecture)
Wil Carson, 64North, UCLA
Peggy Deamer, Yale University and The Architecture Lobby
Jia Gu, Materials & Applications, The Architecture Lobby
Tia Koonse, UCLA Labor Center
Elizabeth Timme, LA-Más
Mimi Zeiger, critic and curator, Art Center College of Design, The Architecture Lobby
Peter Zellner, ZELLNERandCompany, USC, Free School of Architecture
Facilitator: Nancy Alexander

Join us in discussing alternative models of urbanism and how public realm investments can support culture and build community. The recently completed ‘Hollywood Pop!’ will serve as as a starting point for our discussion. A yearlong park installation funded by the Sunset & Vine Business Improvement District, the project was designed and built by LA-Más to explore divergent approaches to providing public amenities in the private realm.

Our diverse panel represents a wide range of voices – urban advocates, bureaucrats, designers, critics, and Hollywood business stakeholders. Our discussion will focus on the potential of public-private partnerships and small scale investments that can not only blur traditional urban boundaries, but also provide a model for investment and impact at the neighborhood scale.

This discussion features Nat Gale (Los Angeles Department of Transportation), Elizabeth Timme (LA-Más), Daveed Kapoor (utopiad.org), Mimi Zeiger (critic), Matthew Severson (Hollywood Property Owners Alliance), with facilitation by Helen Leung (LA-Más).

To celebrate the closing of the exhibition “Shelter” at the Architecture + Design Museum, on curators Sam Lubell and Danielle Rago hosted two panel discussions with the featured architects, focusing on the sites that serve as the exhibition’s organizing principles: the Metro subway extension in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the stretch of the LA River running through the city proper. Both sites embody much of what is affecting Los Angeles’ changing urbanism – ongoing drought, invigorated public transportation, gentrification, and increasing density.

Mimi Zeiger, West Coast Editor of The Architect’s Newspaper moderated the panel on the River, with Jimenez Lai (Bureau Spectacular), Elizabeth Timme (LA-Más), and Lorcan O’Herlihy (Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects), and Amelia Taylor-Hochberg moderated the panel on Metro, with Jennifer Marmon (PAR), Bob Dornberger (wHY), and Priscilla Fraser (senior architect at LACMA).

Archinect Sessions, featuring a live recording of the closing panel discussion.