A partnership between the Virginia Center for Architecture and the Menokin Foundation is yielding big dividends, including an exhibition and a visit from internationally recognized architect and educator Jorge Silvetti.
Menokin, the colonial home of Declaration of Independence signer Francis Gordon Lee, has fallen into ruins in recent years. In the spring of 2013, architecture professor Jorge Silvetti led 12 Harvard Graduate School of Design students through an exploration of the complex design and interpretive questions surrounding the c. 1769 Menokin site. Beginning on Jan. 30, visitors to the Virginia Center for Architecture can discover the students’ innovative solutions for the evocative crumbling ruins and surrounding landscape at this 500 acre site in Virginia’s Northern Neck in an exhibition titled Ruins, Memory, and the Imagination: Menokin Revealed. Be among the first to explore the exhibition at the Opening Reception on Thursday, Jan. 30, from 4:30–6:30 p.m. The reception is free, but space is limited. Register online at architectureva.org, by email to info@aiava.org, or by phone to (804) 644-304, ext. 100.
On Feb. 7, the Center and the Menokin Foundation host Dinner with Jorge Silvetti: The Architect as Storyteller. Hear a lively lecture on Machado and Silvetti Associates’ revolutionary solution to rehabilitate the ruins at Menokin and create a teaching laboratory for design and humanities students at the site. Following the lecture, enjoy dinner with Silvetti in the Center’s galleries. Tickets are $125–200 and proceeds benefit the Virginia Center for Architecture and the Menokin Foundation. Purchase tickets online at architectureva.org.
About Jorge Silvetti
Jorge Silvetti was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he received his diploma [adrotate banner=”52″]in architecture from the University of Buenos Aires. He continued studies at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving his Master of Architecture degree and pursuing post graduate work in the area of architectural theory and criticism. Mr. Silvetti’s architectural practice, Machado and Silvetti Associates, was formed with Rodolfo Machado in 1974. Machado and Silvetti Associates was incorporated in 1985. Silvetti has served as a juror for the Pritzker Architectural Prize since 1996, and in 2000 he became a juror for the Mies van der Rohe Prize for Latin American Architecture. Since 1975, he has taught architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, where he is a tenured Professor of Architecture in Design and Design Theory.