Mark Antony Wigley (born 1956) is a New Zealand-born architect and author based in the United States. From 2004 to 2014, he was the Dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Mark Wigley
Mark Wigley at GSAPP (2015)
Born1956 (age 67–68)
NationalityNew Zealand
Known forArt history, Architectural history, Architectural theory
Notable workDeconstructivist Architecture (1988)

White Walls, Designer Dresses (1995)

Cutting Matta-Clark (2014)

Career

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Wigley received both his Bachelor of Architecture (1979) and Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Mike Austin was his doctoral supervisor. Wigley left Auckland in 1986 and taught at Princeton University, from 1987 to 1999, serving also as the director of Graduate Studies at Princeton’s School of Architecture.

In 1988, Wigley co-curated with Philip Johnson the MoMA exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture. The exhibition featured the works of seven architects, who were already well-known at the time for a style of architecture that involved in various ways "deconstructing" conventional notions of architectural convention: Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas and Coop Himmelb(l)au. The curators linked the works to the philosophical notion of Deconstruction, as espoused by French philosopher Jacques Derrida, as well as the art-architectural historical precedent of Russian constructivism, and several works from this period were displayed in the exhibition. However, of the architects only Eisenman and Tschumi acknowledged the connection to Derrida and only Hadid and Koolhaas to Constructivism.

Personal life

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Mark Wigley is married to architectural historian Beatriz Colomina.

Volume Magazine

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In 2005, Wigley founded Volume Magazine together with Rem Koolhaas and Ole Bouman. A collaborative project by Archis (Amsterdam), AMO Rotterdam and C-lab (Columbia University NY), Volume Magazine is an experimental think tank focusing on the process of spatial and cultural reflexivity. The magazine aims to explore "beyond architecture’s definition of 'making buildings'" by presenting global views on architecture and design, broader attitudes to social structures and created environments; and embodies progressive journalism.

Created and founded in collaboration with Brett Steele the Institute of Failure; essentially an academic institution for the instruction and theory of failure (as opposed to success).

Awards

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Wigley was awarded the Resident Fellowship, Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism, 1989; International Committee of Architectural Critics (C.I.C.A.) Triennial Award for Architectural Criticism, 1990; and the Graham Foundation Grant, 1997.

Exhibitions

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Bibliography

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  • (With Philip Johnson) Deconstructivist Architecture. New York: The Museum of Modern Art; Boston: Little Brown and Company; Distributed by New York Graphic Society Books, 1988. ISBN 087070298X
  • The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1993. ISBN 0262731142
  • White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0262731452
  • Constant's New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire. Rotterdam: Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, 1998. ISBN 9064503435
  • (Edited with Catherine De Zegher) The Activist Drawing: Retracing Situationist Architectures from Constant's New Babylon to Beyond. New York: The Drawing Center, 2001. ISBN 026204191X
  • (With James Graham). Cutting Matta-Clark. The Anarchitecture Project. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers; New York: Columbia University GSAPP, 2014. ISBN 9783037784273
  • Buckminster Fuller Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2015. ISBN 3037784288
  • (With Beatriz Colomina). Are We Human? : Notes on an Archaeology of Design. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2016. ISBN 303778511X
  • Cutting Matta-Clark. The Anarchitecture Investigation. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers; Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture; New York: Columbia University GSAPP, 2018. ISBN 9783037784273
  • Konrad Wachsmann's Television: Post-architectural Transmissions (Critical Spatial Practice, Band 11), London: Sternberg Press 2020

References

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