Architect and artist Didier Faustino will present the next bulthaup lecture at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto at 6:30pm on Tuesday, November 22, 2011.
Describing architecture as “a tool for exacerbating our senses and sharpening our awareness of reality,” Faustino is famous for blurring the line between architecture and art. His work questions conceptions of public and private space by, in part, forging new relationships between architecture and the human body.
Faustino’s body of sociopolitically provocative works include Body in Transit, a design for a cargo container, which tackles agnosia among those in authority and condemns anti-immigration stances. Double Happiness (2009), a billboard converted into a swing set, is a response to materialism and the prevalence of individual desires. And Le Meilleur des Mondes (2011), now on exhibit at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris, offers a distorted reflection of a meeting space where power is exercised.
Faustino’s lecture, titled “Icon vs. Symbol,” will explore his projects over the past 10 years. His talk will examine the fragile balance between art and architecture in his work, and place this work within the larger context of contemporary art production.
Faustino graduated from the Paris-Villemin School of Architecture in 1995. Shortly after, in 1996, he created the Laboratory of Architecture, Performance and Sabotage. In 1998, he co-founded Numeromagazine, a Portuguese review of aesthetics and contemporary arts, and in 2001, he helped launch the first edition of Numerofestival, an international event of electronic music in Lisbon, Portugal. Based in both Paris and Lisbon, Faustino, founded his collaborative studio Bureau des Mésarchitecture in 2001.
The Daniels Faculty would like to thank bulthaup for its sponsorship of the Faustino lecture. Part of the Daniels 2011-2012 Public Lecture Series, the bulthaup Lectures showcase an international array of some of the best and most innovative figures in the field of architecture, design and sustainable urbanization. The Embassy of France in Ottawa, the Consulate of France in Toronto, and the Institut Français have also assisted in bring Faustino to Toronto as a featured architect in the Vis-à-vis Architecture cycle.
Faustino will also lecture at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto at 6:30pm on Wednesday, November 23, 2011.