The Richard H. Driehaus Museum announces Hector Guimard’s Designs for Living: A Forum for New Research & Ideas, a day-long forum to explore key ideas from the Museum’s exhibition, Hector Guimard: Art Nouveau to Modernism. The event is in partnership with the Alliance Française of Chicago and will be held Saturday, October 21, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Alliance Française’s auditorium at 54 W. Clark Street. All tickets include free admission to the Driehaus Museum from Friday-Sunday, October 20-22.
Hector Guimard had a commitment to sharing beautiful, sensuous, accessible designs for both civic and domestic architecture and everyday objects with a wide audience. His use of mass-production technologies resonates with current concerns about accessibility, affordability, and sustainability. Convening an international group of speakers, this forum will highlight new research that reexamines Hector Guimard ’s legacy in the context of his wife’s significant contributions and his own prescient ideas about designing for home and community. Among the themes and speakers:
Exhibition co-curator David A. Hanks, discussing the collecting history of Guimard, especially in the United States
Co-curator Sarah Coffin, on Adeline Guimard’s impact, and how she helped enshrine her husband’s legacy
Nicolas Horiot, architect and Président du Cercle Guimard, to discuss The Cercle Guimard’s efforts to create a Guimard museum in Paris
University of Chicago Professor Leora Auslander on the unique qualities of Hector Guimard’s orthodox synagogue
Isabelle Gournay on Guimard’s Auteil environment and its connection to other planned communities like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian architecture
Columbia University professor Barry Bergdoll on Guimard’s standardized and mass-operational housing projects
Hector Guimard’s Designs for Living: A Forum for New Research & Ideas marks the first partnership between the Driehaus Museum and the Alliance Française of Chicago. Driehaus Museum Executive Director, Lisa M. Key, says, “We are thrilled to have forged a partnership with the Alliance Française. Our missions align perfectly as we convey important new scholarship about France’s own Hector Guimard and his contributions to our built environment. This partnership achieves one of the Museum’s key ambitions as we look ahead to the future-- to contribute more broadly to global conversations about the role art, architecture, and design play in all our lives.” According to Mary Ellen Connellan, the Alliance Française’s Executive Director, “We welcome this opportunity to partner with our distinguished friends at the Driehaus Museum. Partnerships between fellow cultural institutions serve to significantly enhance community participation and help to augment artistic programming and services. Together we are pleased to offer the Chicago community this exceptional look at Hector Guimard, Art Nouveau architect and designer.”
The presenting sponsor for the Driehaus Museum exhibition is Northern Trust. The exhibition is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Richard H. Driehaus Annual Exhibition Fund.
