Mark Favermann
Bio:
Architecture, design, film and theatre critic/associate editor Mark Favermann, is an urban designer and public artist who over the past two decades has written extensively on art and design. A former Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, he was the first leader of the Boston Visual Artists Union (BVAU), the 1970's Boston activist artists organization, served as the former Director of Visual and Environmental Arts for the City of Boston and has been an adjunct professor at several universities. He was a columnist and/or editor for a large number of prominent publications. His own design work has included creating the award-winning marquee for the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, designing the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, creating the look for the 2000 NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis and the 1999 Ryder Cup as well as the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. For the past eight seasons, he has been a design consultant to the Boston Red Sox. His 2005 public art commission, The Birds of Audubon Circle, was nominated by the Boston Art Commission as one of the best pieces of public art in America. In the Fall of 2007, his Recognition Gateway sculpture was installed in South Brookline.
Recent Articles:
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Antoni Gaudi's Fantastic Park Guell Architecture
Masterpiece of Open Space and Imagination
By: - Jan 17th, 2010The concept of Garden Cities was introduced in 1898 by Ebenezer Howard. A visionary and sophisticated Catalan industrialist Eusebi Guell commissioned Gaudi, in 1899, to create a Garden City on a large tract of land overlooking Barcelona. The result is the fantastic Park Guell. The garden city never was completed, but the resulting environment is one of the great open spaces and public areas ever created. Imagination was implemented, and a masterpiece is now shared by all who visit it.
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Wonderful All My Sons at Huntington Theatre Theatre
Arthur Miller's Breakthrough Play Impressive
By: - Jan 15th, 2010It was just after WWII (1947) that Arthur Miller's All My Sons was presented on Broadway and established him as one of America's greatest playwrights. The Huntington Theatre Company's production of this play is about as good as drama gets. The acting, direction and production values are superb. This is a brilliant theatrical treat that deals with morality, family and patriotism.
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Mies van der Rohe's 1929 Barcelona Pavilion Architecture
Exquisite International Style Icon Masterwork
By: - Jan 11th, 2010The German Pavilion, now referred to as the Barcelona Pavilion, was created and built in less than a year by Ludwig Mies van der Rohr for the German Government's exhibit for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition. The architect used geometry and materials in the most elegant ways to create one of the most beautiful edifices of the 20th Century. It was torn down shortly after the exhibition closed. In the 1980s, several Spanish architects had it rebuilt. It is now a major architectural attraction in Barcelona where it has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site.
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Harvard University's New Post Graduate Course: Art and Design in the Public Domain Design
Masters in Design At Graduate School of Design
By: - Jan 10th, 2010Harvard's GSD is beginning a masters program that combines art, design and public involvement. The purpose of the degree focused on Art, Design and the Public Domain is for students who seek to engage with the public and social environment, either physical or virtual, with a view to shaping and transforming human action and historical experience. The three semester course is a multi-disciplined exploration of the social and virtual realms of the public environment from an art and design perspective. Will its direction eventually replace the MFA degree?
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Cooper-Hewitt Names Moggridge Director Design
First Designer to Head Design Museum
By: - Jan 07th, 2010The designer of the first laptop computer (1980) Bill Moggridge was named Director of the Smithsonian's New York based Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the National Design Museum. He is the first designer to be given this administrative post. After a wonderful career designing strategic elements for a rapidly changing technological society, he will be attempting to add depth and breath to a museum that should better reflect our aesthetic as well as functional past, present and future. However, will the skills of the master designer resonate as a museum administrator or Smithsonian bureaucrat?
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Spectacular Bauhaus Exhibit At MoMA Design
Brilliant Overview Through January 25
By: - Nov 29th, 2009The Bauhaus 1919-1933 was the most influential school of avant-garde art and design in the 20th Century. It is famous for its faculty, students and its extraordinary cross discipline conversation about thee nature of art in the modern age. MoMA's exhibit is probably the best presentation ever organized about the quality, craft and depth of this visual and cultural dialogue. There is much to learn and see here. It should not be missed.
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A Civil War Christmas at The Huntington Theatre
An American Musical and Historical Celebration
By: - Nov 22nd, 2009Set at Christmas in and around Washington, D.C. in 1864, A Civil War Christmas at the Huntington Theatre Company portrays a number of poignant stories of various individuals including the Lincolns, soldiers on both sides of the conflict and runaway slaves. The narrative is told in a lovely tapestry of song as well as often with poetic words. The voices and acting are superb. Created by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Paula Vogel, it is a tough and humanly complex story to tell well and stylishly.
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Creative Humanist President John Maeda Leads Rhode Island School of Design in 21st Century Design
Integrating Art, Education and Technology
By: - Nov 11th, 2009A superstar in regard to art, technology and education, John Maeda brings a computer scientist's technical understanding with an artist's appreciation and love of art and design to the task of leading Rhode Island School of Design in the 21st Century. According to Maeda, RISD's Mission has not changed, it is being enhanced. President Maeda articulately expresses his vision and ideas as the leader of one of the world's great design and art school.
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Michael Graves Tells Almost All at Harvard Architecture
Superstar Architect Speaks About His Design Life
By: - Oct 04th, 2009At 75, sitting in a wheelchair paralyzed by an unknown virus several years ago, Michael Graves ruminated on his education and career at his 50th reunion at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. This was a personal journey of the kid from Indianapolis to the architecture professor at Princeton emeritus, Target's object maker, Post Modern's pater and Corot-like painter.
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Hank Gilpin Furniture at Gallery NAGA Design
Elegant New and Commissioned Projects
By: - Oct 01st, 2009Hank Gilpin is a special type of artist. He is a master of materials, especially the most beautiful of domestic woods. He is a master furniture craftsman. After a career of over 35 years, Gallery NAGA is celebrating Hank Gilpin's special talent in his first gallery ever show. Gallerist Arthur Dion has been asking Gilpin to have a show for over 20 years. He finally said yes.
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Fences At Huntington Theatre Company Smashes It Out of the Ballpark Theatre
August Wilson's Greatest Drama
By: - Sep 30th, 2009Playwright August Wilson chronicled the African-American experience in the 20th Century by setting a play in each decade. These very American stories display and dissect the humanity of what it meant to be Black in a prejudiced predominant white society. The 6th in the cycle, Fences is triumphantly brilliant at the Huntington Theatre Company.
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Donkey Show Dances at American Repertory Theatre at Zero Arrow Street, Cambridge, MA Theatre
Shakespeare to a Disco Beat Through January
By: - Sep 30th, 2009A.R.T.'s The Donkey Show is not your mother's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instead, it is sex, drugs and rock and roll to a 70's disco beat. This show is Artistic Director Diane Paulus' first American Rep production. Fairies and actors in disguise, swirling mirror lights, relationship problems, skating diva Puck and a donkey all add to the entertainment.The crowd is going wild. Let's dance, let's dance. It may be addictive.
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The New Chace Center and Thoughtful Design At The Rhode Island School of Design Design
Committment to Design Underscored
By: - Sep 30th, 2009Opening a year ago in October of 2008, the Chace Center marked Rhode Island School of Design's continued commitment to great design and the desire to be 21st Century state of the art in terms of exhibitions and teaching art, architecture and design. They have an ongoing exhibition series dealing with contemporary design and have major design exhibitions like last Spring's Marcel Breuer Exhibit.
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2009 Toronto International Film Festival Film
A Little Something For Everyone at TIFF
By: - Sep 14th, 2009The annual Toronto International Film Festival has become the largest and most diverse film festival in the world. It allows filmlovers to taste, savor, reject and enjoy films from around the globe including general Hollywood big budget movies, independently produced smaller films, documentaries, family entertainments and midnight madness blood and guts horror films.
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Greene & Greene at Boston Museum of Fine Arts Design
A New And Native Beauty Expressed in Art and Craft
By: - Jul 16th, 2009Greene & Greene, Charles Sumner and Henry Mather, California-based architects/designers whose work became the "gold standard" for Arts and Crafts Style. Their elegant collaboration lasted only a short period, but their design legacy is celebrated by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in a beautifully presented and thoughtfully produced exhibition.
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Museum of Modern Art Showcases Quality Objects with What Was Good Design? Design
Carrying On the Debate About Design Excellence
By: - Jul 05th, 2009Along with architecture, since the 1930's, the Museum of Modern Art has been a showcase for the best designs in furniture, appliance, textile, graphic and functional object design. With the supervision of Edgar Kaufmann Jr, MoMA featured highest levels of contemporary design through competitions, museum shows and traveling exhibitions. However, through the years, controversy has followed choices and selections in terms of critiques of elitism and crass commercialism.
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Guggenheim Museum Marks 50th Anniversary Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward Exhibition
By: - Jul 04th, 2009The great architect's landmark building was completed in the fall of 1959. This summer, The Guggenheim Museum is celebrating its golden anniversary with a wonderful exhibition of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. Bringing together 64 projects, many of which have never been seen by the public, this exhibit broadly demonstrates the resonance and continued influence of this unique architect.
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Berlin's Jewish Museum By Daniel Libeskind Architecture
A Flawed Museum in A Deconstructivist Masterwork
By: - Jun 15th, 2009One of the first major buildings constructed after German reunification, the Jewish Museum (Judisches Museum Berlin), was, after winning a competition, designed by prominent and often controversial architect Daniel Libeskind. One of the foremost proponents of Deconstructivist theory, Libeskind illustrates this design approach by the museum's architecture. The museum exhibits are underwhelming and somewhat confusing, but the museum structure is daring and compelling.
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Peter Eisenman's Provocative and Thoughtful Memorial To The Murdered Jews of Europe Architecture
Public Art As Ambiguous Guilt and Redemption
By: - Jun 12th, 2009A few years after the Berlin Wall fell, American architect Peter Eisenman was chosen to create a Berlin memorial to the 6 million murdered Jews of Europe. As with many public art pieces, there was controversy, debate and even anger. These elements were added to by public shame, national guilt and community remorse. The result is still not championed by all, but it certainly is a provocative, thoughtful and rather wonderful piece of civic design.
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Frank Gehry's Dancing House in Prague Architecture
An American/Czech Architectural Masterpiece
By: - Jun 08th, 2009Throughout his career, architect Frank Gehry has been a practitioner of building as sculpture. His efforts often result in debate, heated arguments and civic tumult. This building was the first major introduction of American global culture to Prague after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. Today, the Dancing House is an integral part of Prague's 1200 year urban history. This internationally recognized structure began in a not surprising state of intellectual and design controversy.
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Czech Cubism: A Prague Architectural Treat Architecture
Early Elegant 20th Century Design Style
By: - May 31st, 2009Prague is one of the oldest continuous cities in the world. Its architecture ranges from Romanesque to Gothic to Baroque to Art Nouveau and Art Deco. However, a rather special architectural design took roots there during the first two decades of the 20th Century. It is distinctive and abstract. The mystery includes why it took form there and did not proliferate.
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Enchanting Pirates At Huntington Theatre Co. Theatre
A Brilliant Adaptation of Pirates of Penzance
By: - May 25th, 2009Pirates are always an interesting subject. Lately, the romance has been taken away by the threatening, even deadly Somali pirates on the waterways off the Horn of Africa. But a revival of positive pirate interest may evolve from the wonderful Pirates! at the Huntington Theatre Company. It is a compellingly entertaining late Spring entertainment.
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Unique Rietveld-Schroeder House in Utrecht Architecture
Only De Stijl House Ever Built
By: - May 04th, 2009In 1924, a widow, Mrs. Truus Schroeder-Schrader adventurously commissioned a young architecturally trained furnituremaker to design a special house for her three children and her. The result was an amazingly austere yet sculpturally beautiful edifice that she lived in for over 40 years. The young architect was Gerrit Rietveld who was a member of the Dutch The Stijl art and design group. The impact of the house was clear. Two of Mrs. Schoeder's children became architects, and the house is one of the world's legendary structures.
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Great Night at Boston Independent Film Festival Film
Bobcat Goldwait Directs Robin Williams
By: - Apr 30th, 2009The Boston Independent Film Festival has developed into a serious film celebration. Closing night of the seventh year of the Boston Independent Film Festival took place at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. The film was World's Greatest Dad directed by Bobcat Goldwait and starring Robin Williams. Yes, that Bobcat Goldwait of intellectually unmemorable films like Police Academy and quirky standup routines. The crowd loved it at the Coolidge with Robin Williams on the screen and Goldwait in person.
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The Wrestling Patient: at SpeakEasy Stage Co. Theatre
World Premiere of WWII Play about Dutch Writer
By: - Mar 30th, 2009In the last 60 years, Holocaust stories are familiar narratives about good and evil. The SpeakEasy Stage Company is having the World Premiere of a true story that has been little told about a distinctive Dutch Jewish writer Etty Hillesum during the last years of her life.
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