R & Company is pleased to announce Ali Tayar: Systems & One-Offs,
which opens at the gallery on April 25. The exhibition is the first
comprehensive survey of the celebrated architect/designer since his
death in 2016, and provides an overview of his multifaceted career. It
is co-curated by Dung Ngo, a design editor and one of Tayar’s close
friends. Tayar’s estate is earmarking proceeds from the exhibition to
create a scholarship in his name towards Parsons School of Design in New
York.
Ali Tayar received a traditional, engineering-focused, European
architectural education. Drawing inspiration from mass production and
modular systems, he developed a signature style, and an opus of original
works that are both rational and poetic. Over the span of his career,
Tayar worked in all scales, from small everyday objects to furniture
prototypes, to architectural interiors and full-scale buildings. Tayar
conceptualized his practice with a dual philosophical system, marrying a
strong interest in modular design with his passion for classic
modernism. “Ali called his studio Parallel Design,” Dung Ngo recalls,
“as a recognition that his parallel practices in architecture,
interiors, furniture, and product design all came out of the same design
philosophy. These correlated thought processes resulted in a cohesive
body of works that combined both rigorous aesthetics and evolving,
flexible design concepts.”
Systems & One-Offs showcases Ali Tayar’s most compelling
designs, objects and furniture. On view is one of Tayar’s earlier and
most iconic pieces, “NEA Table, Version 1”. This transformed
“ready-made” piece, created out of a molded recomposed wood pallet, cast
aluminum, and glass exemplifies Tayar’s interest in and experimentation
with found and new materials. This table, along with “Ellen’s
Brackets”, a commissioned set of bookshelves, was Tayar’s design debut,
and both were included in the 1995 MoMA exhibition Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design.
Also on display is an example of the innovative workstation “ICON”,
from his own office at Parallel Design, which is comprised of modular
shelving units that can be arranged into configurations of various
heights and widths. This piece was exhibited in the 2001 MoMA survey Workspheres
and is presented in the exhibition alongside a stackable shelving
system, in wood and aluminum from 1992, that can be similarly configured
into various formats. Both of these multifunctional pieces are clear
examples of Tayar’s aspiration to create flexible modular systems based
on spatial context.
The exhibition also unveils a selection of rare ephemera including
prototypes, architectural drawings and photographs that provide insight
into Ali Tayar’s conceptual process, which was at the center of his
practice. On view is a drawing for one of Tayar’s most memorable
exteriors: the metal entrance he designed for Mark McDonald’s Gansevoort
Gallery in New York’s Meatpacking district (1995 – 2002). The design
was described by McDonald as “a brutal, massive, yet delicate design
inspired by the gravity-based movement of carcasses of beef on the
tracks, hooks, and pulleys throughout the meat-packing area.” The
material from this particular work inspired Tayar to realize one of his
most celebrated pieces, “Plaza Screen”, a unit system made of extruded
aluminum panels that the user can assemble in any length and shape they
desire.
The selection of works in Systems & One-Offs serves as a
memoir, portraying Tayar’s creative process, his interest in unusual
techniques and his innovative approach to materials. In 2001 Tayar
stated, “Solutions can often be found by either utilizing existing
process in new ways, as in the case of the extruded aluminum shelving
bracket, or by investigating materials, such as molded particle board.”
The exhibition draws together the diverse set of solutions Tayar
achieved through all aspects of his design process. The collection of
works on view demonstrates Ali Tayar’s fundamental objective of
combining formal modernism and modular design into his own systematic
ideology.
Image: Joe Kramm, courtesy R &
Company
Text: R & COMPANY website (accessed 24 April 2017)