October 6, 2024

Thomas Phifer, the Portman Critic for the coming year, explored projects he called "life-changing" in the recent Portman Critic Lecture, with particular focus on using natural light and site context to affect how people experience the space.

"Thomas Phifer and Partners are known for their refined compositions, their masterful use of natural light, and their thoughtful integration into the landscape," said Julie Kim, chair of the School. "They consider the role of architecture as a platform that fosters meaningful interactions, and is shaped by light, by material, and then by experience."

For the lecture, Phifer gave in-depth explanations of the Glenstone Museum project and the combined Museum of Modern Art Warsaw / TR Warszawa Theatre projects. "These are the two projects that are nearest and dearest to my heart because they changed my life," he said.

In the Glenstone project, ten of the twelve rooms are each dedicated to one artist in perpetuity, Phifer said. "We worked with each individual artist, if they were still living, to determine the proportion of the space, the character, the light, the intensity of the light, and the experience of arriving in that room." Rooms were separated and situated in the landscape to encourage visitors to pause and reflect. 

In Warsaw, Phifer had the opportunity to support artistic voices in a different manner. "Warsaw was destroyed by the Germans and the Russians after the war. Now the city is blossoming, but they have been silenced as a people for so many decades," Phifer said. "These two artistic buildings are right in the middle of the city at the base of Stalin's palace, and they are going to speak with this voice from Warsaw."

"And so this will be a mirror to their culture. It's going to be these works that will challenge and be a voice that speaks about their experience and their lives."

As Portman Critic, Phifer will lead the flagship Portman Studio in the spring. "The studio is going to be about shaping light, and how the ritual that we go through every day can inform your relationship to light in nature. Nature is light, it's the movement of light, the changing light, the atmosphere of the light," Phifer said. 

"So I'm really looking forward to the studio. Should be really fun."