Allied Works Architecture’s Brad Cloepfil on his Denver exhibition

In late January the Denver Art Museum will present Case Work: Studies in Form, Space & Construction an exhibition of 17 architectural sculptures along with dozens of drawings and sketches created by Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture.

The show is crafty, abstract, and tactile at a time when much architectural representation prides itself on slick realism. Visitors will move through an installation designed and built by the firm that highlights model-like sculptures made out of wood, porcelain, resin, and concrete.

Curated by Dean Sobel and organized by the Clyfford Still Museum and the Portland Art Museum, Case Work makes an argument for process and ideation. The show is on view in Denver through April 17 and then will be shown in Portland from June 4 through September 4, 2016. AN’s West Editor Mimi Zeiger spoke with Cloepfil about the works and how they defy today’s image-driven design culture.

Brad Cloepfil said, “We’ve been talking about this show for close to five years. We often work with art museums, where curators and directors would see our concept models and sketches- output of our process-say, ‘You should have a show.’

So, I was inspired to finally get my act together and pull the pieces together into a show. That’s really it. It’s nice to show the byproducts of creative industry. Architecture in this particular moment is so much answer an image. It’s resolution focused, so Case Work is a kind of a counterproposal. It is asserting another position.

“The architecture is about the exploration of ideas, not the search for a salable image-not the branding of a practice as an image code.”

“We also named one Stairway to Heaven and we’ve named others after rock songs, too. The title paraphrases the search and the element of the search. Because that’s what they’re all for, they’re searching for a kind of spirit-the essence and spirit to what the building is pursuing.”