Lauretta Vinciarelli

Judd Foundation is pleased to announce a panel conversation on the work of Lauretta Vinciarelli in conjunction with Lauretta Vinciarelli, an exhibition of architectural drawings by the architect and artist currently on view at 101 Spring Street in New York. The panel will be moderated by Barry Bergdoll, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Columbia University. The panelists are Sean Anderson, Associate Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art; Marta Gutman, Professor of Architectural and Urban History at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York and a member of the doctoral faculty of Art History at The Graduate Center City College of New York; Mary McLeod, Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP; and James Russell, Architecture critic, journalist, teacher, and consultant. The program is free and open to the public. Tickets may be reserved here.

Lauretta Vinciarelli (1943-2011) occupies a place of historic importance in the 1970s revival of architectural drawings and architectonic trends in contemporary painting. Using an approach that focused on architectural typologies and building types, Vinciarelli developed a method of “drawing as research” vividly demonstrated in her colored pencil and watercolor architectural proposals and drawings from the 1970s and 1980s. As she described in a 1978 lecture: “Architects are asking the question: ‘how can we do [make] architecture that people can understand?’…And my question is: ‘in what way can we do an architecture which is recognizable?’ And in my opinion the adherence to historical types can help.”

Vinciarelli attended graduate school at the Università di Roma La Sapienza, earning her doctorate in architecture and urban planning. There, Vinciarelli encountered the typological and vernacular approaches to housing and urban design of Ludovico Quaroni and Mario Ridolfi, which established critiques of market capitalism and materialism that permeated Italian architectural discourse in the late 1960s and 1970s. Vinciarelli moved to New York City in 1969, where she became involved in the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies until its closure in 1984. She was a vital member of the ReVisions study group, formed in 1981, which hosted public programs that explored the relationship of art, architecture, and ideology. Vinciarelli taught at various architecture schools beginning in 1975 at the Pratt Institute, later teaching at Columbia University (1978-2000), City College New York (1985-1992), and as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (1981) and Rice University, Houston (1982). 

In the late 1970s, Vinciarelli began a relationship with Donald Judd as both a professional collaborator and partner. Their collaborative work, occurring over the course of a decade, can be seen in numerous realized and unrealized projects in West Texas. The two worked on commissions for a large outdoor work for the plaza in front of city hall in Providence, Rhode Island (1984), and a proposal for a large complex for the Progressive Insurance company in Cleveland, Ohio (1986), neither realized. Vinciarelli also contributed her drafting skills to Judd’s printmaking, making drawings for plates used to create a set of 27 etchings (1983-85).

Curated by Caitlin Murray, Director of Marfa Programs and Archivist at Judd Foundation, the exhibition includes 23 drawings for gardens and structures in West Texas and in Puglia, Italy. Judd acquired a number of Vinciarelli’s drawings, including the Puglia project, shortly after their realization. The additional drawings and watercolors in the exhibition were generously gifted to Judd Foundation by Vinciarelli’s husband, Peter Rowe, the Raymond Garbe Professor of Architecture and Urban Design and Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor.

Lauretta Vinciarelli is made possible with support from Ronnie Heyman and Loren Pack & Robert Beyer.

Exhibition hours:
Thursday-Saturday, 1-5:30pm
Ground floor exhibition space only

For more information please contact info [​at​] juddfoundation.org.