The Gallery

The pinkcomma gallery opens at a time of shifting design sensibilities in Boston. No longer exclusively clad in brick, a few recent institutional buildings in the city indicate an acceptance of fresh and adventurous architecture—reminiscent of the late modernist period when Boston’s new structures were a part of the international vanguard. Yet the work produced in the local establishment is often far from inventive or original. This gallery hopes to foster and recognize a more creative, youthful, and experimental scene that has grown out of one of the world’s most significant capitals of architectural education. For all the city’s stodginess, Boston’s five architecture schools and their instructors have unleashed some of the most provocative figures on the world scene. Why hasn’t this culture permeated the city’s own architectural sense of itself?

It seems clear to us that such a culture is on the rise, yet is in desperate need of independent venues to foster its growth. pinkcomma will showcase Boston’s new architectural underground—in a space that is literally and windowlessly subterranean. We hope to encourage broader popular support for this underground sensibility. At the same time, pinkcomma will be a place for the exchange and expansion of ideas within Boston’s larger design scene, not just in terms of architecture, but also in the disciplines of landscape, graphics, urbanism, interiors, and industrial design, among many other fields.

pinkcomma exists outside Boston’s power circles, yet strives to make design more pivotal in the city’s political discourse. The gallery’s role will be activist in nature, promoting works that may be at times politically unpalatable or financially untenable, unpopular or unacknowledged. For this reason, the Rethinking City Hall exhibit seemed a natural fit for the gallery’s inaugural show. It is both a protest against the mayor’s desire to abandon an enormously important civic building as well as a conceptual foray into urgent questions at the intersection of contemporary life and an aging modernist tradition. The teams included are young thinkers of diverse interests hailing from across the globe. Boston is their new home. Their works offer us a window into the city’s architectural underground.

Mark Pasnik and Chris Grimley, Directors

Current

Parti Wall, Hanging Green

May 16th—June 20th

"Parti Wall, Hanging Green" is an installation and related exhibition of ten emerging architecture and design firms who collaborated to create a prototype green wall. The installation is suspended from a blank brick surface on the newly converted loft building at 90 Wareham Street (known as The 1850) in Boston’s South End. This five-story-high planted structure is visible from the entrance to the gallery, where an exhibition of the installation’s collaborative design process and works of individual firms is on display. The ten firms—all of which were formed in the last six years—joined together to establish the Young Architects Boston Group in January. The group’s prototype green wall illustrates how Boston’s scattered brick surfaces could become opportunities for zero footprint public art that improves the city visually and environmentally. The installation is sponsored by the LEF Foundation, the Boston Society of Architects, the real estate development company Cresset, Arclinea Boston, Griplock Systems, and ServicePoint. Evan Hankin, PE is the structural engineer. Image courtesy Howeler + Yoon Architecture for Young Architects Boston Group.

Young Architects Boston Group: Ground; Howeler + Yoon Architecture; LinOldhamOffice; Merge Architects; MOS; over,under; SsD; Studio Luz Architects; UNI; and Utile.

Hours: Monday—Friday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. or by appointment.

News

The exhibition "Rethinking Boston City Hall," which originated at pinkcomma gallery, traveled in May to the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas.

The pinkcomma gallery appears in the March and April 2008 issues of The Architect and the May issue of Architectural Record.

Upcoming

Summer: Venue. An exhibition on the game "Rock Band," which explores the design process and the spatial environments created for this popular and sophisticated video game.

Summer: Vessel. An exhibit documenting the work of this talented Boston industrial design company.

Fall: Concrete Toronto vs. Concrete Boston.