Finding Aid for the Escher GuneWardena Architecture cabinet drawings for "Stephen Prina: As He Remembered It" 0000339

Finding aid prepared by ADC staff
The processing of this collection was made possible through generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered through the Council on Library and Information Resources “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives” Project.
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Arts Building Room 1434
University of California
Santa Barbara, California, 93106-7130
805-893-2724
adc@museum.ucsb.edu
11/8/2013


Title: Escher GuneWardena Architecture cabinet drawings for Stephen Prina, As He Remembered It
Identifier/Call Number: 0000339
Contributing Institution: Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material: English
Physical Description: 42.0 Items (2 flat file folders)
Date: 2011
creator: Escher GuneWardena Architecture.
creator: Prina, Stephen, 1954-
creator: Schindler, R. M., (Rudolph M. ), 1887-1953

Preferred Citation note

Escher GuneWardena Architecture cabinet drawings for "Stephen Prina: As He Remembered It"; Architecture and Design Collection, Art Design & Architecture Museum, UC Santa Barbara

Biographical/Historical note

Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena are architects and partners in Escher-GunWardena Architecture, in Los Angeles. They have frequently collaborated with artists and designed exhibition installations.

Custodial History note

Gift of Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena.

Scope and Contents note

Escher GuneWardena Architecture (Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena) used the drawings in the Rudolph M. Schindler papers at UCSB to create cabinet drawings of the furniture made for the exhibit "Stephen Prina: As He Remembered It," which opened at Secession, in Vienna, in 2011, and was installed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2013.
Stephen Prina's art work appropriated built-in furniture designs that R. M. Schindler created for the Rose Harris house (1942) and the H. Hiler house (1941), houses that no longer existed at the time of Prina's work.
Prina had the furniture pieces reconstructed and then "used them as a 'canvas' for his monochrome painting." He painted all of the furniture pink. The Secession exhibition catalog posed the question that Prina, known for his use of appropriation in his practice, began with: "If you remove a piece of furniture designed for a specific context from this context and transfer it to a new one, how much of its original context does it take with it?"
[From Stephen Prina, As He Remembered It (Vienna: Seccession, 2011), 5)

Related Archival Materials note

R. M. Schindler papers, Archiecture and Design Collection, collection no. 100