Brad Cloepfil
Encyclopedia
Brad Cloepfil is an American architect, educator and principal of Allied Works Architecture of Portland, Oregon
and New York City
. His first major project was an adaptive reuse of a Portland warehouse for the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy
. Since 2000, Cloepfil and Allied Works have completed cultural, commercial and residential projects including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
, the University of Michigan Museum of Art
, the Dutchess County Residence Guest House and the Museum of Arts and Design. Current works include the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, scheduled to open in November 2011, and the National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary, Alberta, scheduled to open in 2013. .
and attended the University of Oregon
. At the University of Oregon, he studied under professor Thomas Hacker, who had worked with Louis Kahn
in Philadelphia.
After receiving his Bachelor of Architecture in 1980, he went to Switzerland
to work in the office of Mario Botta
. During his time there, he observed the divergence in architectural styles between the United States
and other locations where modernism was evolving such as Europe and Japan. Cloepfil later termed American postmodernism as a "diversional aberration", driven by commercialism rather than architecture.
He then studied at Columbia University
and earned his Masters of Architecture degree in 1985. While in New York, Cloepfil took inspiration from the large-scale, minimalist sculptures of Richard Serra, and the work of land and installation artists of the 1960's and 70's. After nine years of teaching and practice in New York, California and Oregon, he founded Allied Works Architecture in 1994.
In addition to the influence of environmental art movements and architectural philosophy from architects like Botta and Kahn, Cloepfil credits the landscape and monumental works of engineering in the Pacific Northwest
as a primary influence.
near Goldendale, Washington.
Building was awarded after the co-founder Dan Wieden
sought out the designer of a local Portland bar called Saucebox, which was one of Cloepfil's early tight-budget projects. The project transformed an abandoned 1908 warehouse into the headquarters for an international advertising agency. In a state of extreme disrepair after decades as a sealed cold-storage facility, Wieden had doubts of ever moving in there, but Cloepfil convinced him that it was worth the effort. The Allied Works design turned the dark warehouse into a light-filled, open structure with new concrete and reclaimed Douglas-fir juxtaposed against the existing masonry and heavy timber frame. This project earned him several other projects from Wieden and would prove to be instrumental in further commissions.
Cloepfil's firm was selected in a 1999 design competition for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
over world-renown architects such as Peter Zumthor
, Herzog & de Meuron
, and Rem Koolhaas
. The museum was sited next to an existing Tadao Ando
building for the Pulitzer Foundation and completed in 2003. The program of the museum was open-ended in the model of European Kunsthalls and does not own a collection. Describing his approach, Cloepfil said “I wanted a space that is energized on its own terms but also would be inspirational for artists. In a noncollecting context, you hope that artists are intensely motivated to generate work for the space."
When the Seattle Art Museum expansion committee was seeking an architect, it was the chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern art in New York, Terry Riley that suggested they consider Brad Cloepfil based on the work done on Wieden+Kennedy. In 2002, the Seattle Art Museum selected Allied Works for the expansion project, which more than doubled the museum's space, accommodated Robert Venturi
's original design in 1991, and also included offices for Washington Mutual
until the museum expands again. Allied Works was selected over other finalists Polshek Partnership
and Cooper, Robertson & Partners.
Also in 2002, Cloepfil won the redesign of Edward Durell Stone
's 2 Columbus Circle
for the Museum of Arts and Design over architects Zaha Hadid
, Toshiko Mori Architects, and Smith-Miller & Hawkinson Architects. Interest in landmarking this building began in 1996, soon after the building turned thirty years old and became eligible for landmark designation. In this year, Robert A. M. Stern
included it in his article " A Preservationist's List of 35 Modern Landmarks-in-Waiting" written for the New York Times.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E5D91F3BF934A25752C1A960958260
Proposed changes to the building touched off a preservation debate joined by Tom Wolfe
, Chuck Close
, Frank Stella
, Robert A. M. Stern, Columbia art history department chairman Barry Bergdoll
, New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp
, urbanist scholar Witold Rybczynski
, among others. When the building was vacated by the NYC Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1998 it was neglected, and remained unoccupied until the right to redevelop the building was awarded to the American Craft Museum (now known as the Museum of Arts and Design). Years later, plans to alter the building were called the erasure "of a rare American modernist."
Cloepfil attempted to appease both sides and pay homage the building designed by Stone while at the same time, open it up for the public. He used the same massing and geometric shape as dictated by the city zoning regulations, but carved channels into the structure to bring in natural light. The redesigned building replaced the original white Vermont Marble
with a glazed terra-cotta and glass facade.
The redesign of 2 Columbus Circle generated considerable attention and debate within the local community and architectural press, including opinion pieces written by Nicolai Ouroussoff
, Ada Louise Huxtable
, Paul Goldberger
, Witold Rybczynski
and Justin Davidson
.
Museum, which will sit adjacent and in contrast to Daniel Libeskind
's design of the Denver Art Museum
. He says that his goal is to provide the visitors an intimate experience with the artist and that the contrast of architectural styles between him and Libeskind's will create an interesting dynamic. The museum, originally set to open in 2010, will open to the public on November 19, 2011.
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His first major project was an adaptive reuse of a Portland warehouse for the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...
. Since 2000, Cloepfil and Allied Works have completed cultural, commercial and residential projects including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, in the U.S. state of Missouri.- External links :*...
, the University of Michigan Museum of Art
University of Michigan Museum of Art
The University of Michigan Museum of Art, or UMMA in Ann Arbor, Michigan with is one of the largest university art museums in the USA. Built as a war memorial in 1909 for the university's fallen alumni from the Civil War, Alumni Memorial Hall originally housed U-M's Alumni office along with the...
, the Dutchess County Residence Guest House and the Museum of Arts and Design. Current works include the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado, scheduled to open in November 2011, and the National Music Centre of Canada in Calgary, Alberta, scheduled to open in 2013. .
Early career and influences
Brad Cloepfil was born and raised in the suburbs of Portland, OregonPortland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
and attended the University of Oregon
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...
. At the University of Oregon, he studied under professor Thomas Hacker, who had worked with Louis Kahn
Louis Kahn
Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...
in Philadelphia.
After receiving his Bachelor of Architecture in 1980, he went to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
to work in the office of Mario Botta
Mario Botta
Mario Botta is a Swiss architect. He studied at the Liceo Artistico in Milan and the IUAV in Venice. His ideas were influenced by Le Corbusier, Carlo Scarpa, Louis Kahn. He opened his own practice in 1970 in Lugano.-Career:...
. During his time there, he observed the divergence in architectural styles between the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and other locations where modernism was evolving such as Europe and Japan. Cloepfil later termed American postmodernism as a "diversional aberration", driven by commercialism rather than architecture.
He then studied at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and earned his Masters of Architecture degree in 1985. While in New York, Cloepfil took inspiration from the large-scale, minimalist sculptures of Richard Serra, and the work of land and installation artists of the 1960's and 70's. After nine years of teaching and practice in New York, California and Oregon, he founded Allied Works Architecture in 1994.
In addition to the influence of environmental art movements and architectural philosophy from architects like Botta and Kahn, Cloepfil credits the landscape and monumental works of engineering in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
as a primary influence.
Career at Allied Works
One of his earliest conceptual proposals was "Sitings: Five Reflections on Architectural Domain". The project proposed a series of site-specific interventions in diverse landscapes across the Pacific Northwest. This resulted in Cloepfil's first built project to receive national attention, the Maryhill Overlook. The Overlook is an 8’ x 150’ site installation located on a bluff in the Columbia River Gorge, adjacent to the Maryhill Museum of ArtMaryhill Museum of Art
The Maryhill Museum of Art is a small museum with an eclectic collection, located near Maryhill in the U.S. state of Washington.The structure was built as a mansion by entrepreneur Samuel Hill...
near Goldendale, Washington.
Wieden+Kennedy Building
Allied Works' first major commission for the Wieden+KennedyWieden+Kennedy
Wieden+Kennedy is an independently owned American advertising agency best known for its work for Nike...
Building was awarded after the co-founder Dan Wieden
Dan Wieden
Dan Wieden is an American advertising executive who co-founded Wieden+Kennedy, and who coined the Nike tagline "Just Do It".He and David Kennedy were listed as number 22 on the Advertising Age 100 ad people of the 20th century...
sought out the designer of a local Portland bar called Saucebox, which was one of Cloepfil's early tight-budget projects. The project transformed an abandoned 1908 warehouse into the headquarters for an international advertising agency. In a state of extreme disrepair after decades as a sealed cold-storage facility, Wieden had doubts of ever moving in there, but Cloepfil convinced him that it was worth the effort. The Allied Works design turned the dark warehouse into a light-filled, open structure with new concrete and reclaimed Douglas-fir juxtaposed against the existing masonry and heavy timber frame. This project earned him several other projects from Wieden and would prove to be instrumental in further commissions.
Contemporary Art Museum Saint Louis
Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is an art museum for contemporary art, located in St. Louis, in the U.S. state of Missouri.- External links :*...
over world-renown architects such as Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize.-Early life:Zumthor was born in Basel, the son of a cabinet-maker...
, Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, BSA/SIA/ETH is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog , and Pierre de Meuron , closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of...
, and Rem Koolhaas
Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...
. The museum was sited next to an existing Tadao Ando
Tadao Ando
is a Japanese architect whose approach to architecture was once categorized by Francesco Dal Co as critical regionalism. Ando has led a storied life, working as a truck driver and boxer prior to settling on the profession of architecture, despite never having taken formal training in the field...
building for the Pulitzer Foundation and completed in 2003. The program of the museum was open-ended in the model of European Kunsthalls and does not own a collection. Describing his approach, Cloepfil said “I wanted a space that is energized on its own terms but also would be inspirational for artists. In a noncollecting context, you hope that artists are intensely motivated to generate work for the space."
Seattle Art Museum Expansion
Robert Venturi
Robert Charles Venturi, Jr. is an American architect, founding principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, and one of the major figures in the architecture of the twentieth century...
's original design in 1991, and also included offices for Washington Mutual
Washington Mutual
Washington Mutual, Inc. , abbreviated to WaMu, was a savings bank holding company and the former owner of Washington Mutual Bank, which was the United States' largest savings and loan association until its collapse in 2008....
until the museum expands again. Allied Works was selected over other finalists Polshek Partnership
Polshek Partnership
Ennead Architects LLP is a New York City-based architectural firm. Previously known as Polshek Partnership, the firm's nine partners renamed their practice in mid-2010....
and Cooper, Robertson & Partners.
Museum of Arts and Design
Edward Durell Stone
Edward Durell Stone was a twentieth century American architect who worked primarily in the Modernist style.-Early life:...
's 2 Columbus Circle
2 Columbus Circle
2 Columbus Circle is a small, trapezoidal lot on the south side of Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, USA.The seven-story Pabst Grand Circle Hotel, designed by William H. Cauvet, stood at this address from 1874 until it was demolished in 1960...
for the Museum of Arts and Design over architects Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid, CBE is an Iraqi-British architect.-Life and career:Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.After graduating she worked...
, Toshiko Mori Architects, and Smith-Miller & Hawkinson Architects. Interest in landmarking this building began in 1996, soon after the building turned thirty years old and became eligible for landmark designation. In this year, Robert A. M. Stern
Robert A. M. Stern
Robert Arthur Morton Stern, usually credited as Robert A. M. Stern, is an American architect and Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture....
included it in his article " A Preservationist's List of 35 Modern Landmarks-in-Waiting" written for the New York Times.http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E5D91F3BF934A25752C1A960958260
Proposed changes to the building touched off a preservation debate joined by Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
, Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Charles Thomas "Chuck" Close is an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits...
, Frank Stella
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
, Robert A. M. Stern, Columbia art history department chairman Barry Bergdoll
Barry Bergdoll
Barry Bergdoll is a Professor of architectural history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.-Education:...
, New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp
Herbert Muschamp
Herbert Mitchell Muschamp was an American architecture critic.- Early years :Born in Philadelphia, Muschamp described his childhood home life as follows: “The living room was a secret. A forbidden zone. The new slipcovers were not, in fact, the reason why sitting down there was taboo. That was...
, urbanist scholar Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski , is a Canadian-American architect, professor and writer.Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England before moving at a young age to Canada. He attended Loyola High School , located on Sherbrooke street, in Montreal-Ouest...
, among others. When the building was vacated by the NYC Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1998 it was neglected, and remained unoccupied until the right to redevelop the building was awarded to the American Craft Museum (now known as the Museum of Arts and Design). Years later, plans to alter the building were called the erasure "of a rare American modernist."
Cloepfil attempted to appease both sides and pay homage the building designed by Stone while at the same time, open it up for the public. He used the same massing and geometric shape as dictated by the city zoning regulations, but carved channels into the structure to bring in natural light. The redesigned building replaced the original white Vermont Marble
Vermont Marble Museum
The Vermont Marble Museum or Vermont Marble Exhibit is a museum commemorating the contributions of Vermont marble and the Vermont Marble Company, located in Proctor, Vermont, USA...
with a glazed terra-cotta and glass facade.
The redesign of 2 Columbus Circle generated considerable attention and debate within the local community and architectural press, including opinion pieces written by Nicolai Ouroussoff
Nicolai Ouroussoff
Nicolai Ouroussoff is the architecture critic for The New York Times.-Biography:Born in Boston, Massachusetts United States, he received a bachelor’s degree in Russian from Georgetown University and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of ArchitectureThe protégé of the...
, Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable is an architecture critic and writer on architecture. In 1970 she was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for "distinguished criticism during 1969."...
, Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger is the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City...
, Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski
Witold Rybczynski , is a Canadian-American architect, professor and writer.Rybczynski was born in Edinburgh of Polish parentage and raised in Surrey, England before moving at a young age to Canada. He attended Loyola High School , located on Sherbrooke street, in Montreal-Ouest...
and Justin Davidson
Justin Davidson
Justin Davidson is a classical music and architecture critic. He began his journalism career as a local stringer for the Associated Press in Rome before moving to the United States to study music at Harvard...
.
Clyfford Still Museum
In 2007, Cloepfil and Allied Works won the competition to design the Clyfford StillClyfford Still
Clyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.-Biography:...
Museum, which will sit adjacent and in contrast to Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind, is an American architect, artist, and set designer of Polish-Jewish descent. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect...
's design of the Denver Art Museum
Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado located in Denver's Civic Center.It is known for its collection of American Indian art,and has a comprehensive collection numbering more than 68,000 works from across the world....
. He says that his goal is to provide the visitors an intimate experience with the artist and that the contrast of architectural styles between him and Libeskind's will create an interesting dynamic. The museum, originally set to open in 2010, will open to the public on November 19, 2011.