Marshall Brown

Collage in architecture is more easily addressed as a conceptual approach or an aesthetic condition.

Despite its consistent presence throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, collage has never been considered a standard form of architectural representation like drafting, model making, or sketching. The work of Marshall Brown, an architect and artist, demonstrates the power of collage as an architectural medium as well as an architectural practice. In Brown's view, collage changes the terms of architectural authorship and challenges outdated definitions of originality that are common in the field of architecture.

This book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in summer 2022, features some 40 collages by Marshall Brown. The selection comprises images from his recent series titled Je est un autre and Chimera, as well as photographs of Ziggurat, a temporary pavilion designed for the Arts Clubs of Chicago and based on the Chimera series. Moreover, it presents pictures originating from visionary architectural and urban design proposals for Chicago, Detroit, and New York. The full colour plates are supplemented by essays that outline the conceptual foundations of Brown's intriguing oeuvre at the intersection of architecture and art.

About the Authors

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, opened to the public in 1941, is home to a permanent collection of some 250,000 works of art that represent five millennia of human creativity, including outstanding classical antiquities, the largest holdings of French Impressionism on the United States' west coast, and one of the most distinguished collections of Latin American art. James Glisson is an art historian and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's curator of contemporary art.

Marshall Brown is an architect and artist. He runs his own design practice Marshall Brown Projects and teaches as an Associate Professor of Architecture at Princeton University. He has represented the United States at the 2016 international architecture exhibition of the Venice Biennale. His work is represented in the collections of major museums, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.