Neil Denari

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Neil Denari (b. Fort Worth, Texas September 03, 1957) is an American architect, professor, and author. Based since 1988 in Los Angeles, he is one of the leading figures of his generation. Denari emerged in New York during the 1980s with a series of theoretical projects and texts based on the end-game of Modernism's Paradigm of the Machine. He often exhibited his work at the Storefront for Art & Architecure. With the advent of computer technology, Denari has for the last fifteen years explored through architecture the as yet to be coded world of globalized society. Architecture here is a model of fluid forms and continuous surfaces. His office, Neil M. Denari Architects (NMDA) is a highly regarded firm dedicated to exploring the realms of architecure, design, urbanism, and all aspects of contemporary life. Denari also holds the position of Professor-in-Residence at UCLA.

[edit] Background

Denari received a Bachelor of Architecture in 1980 from the University of Houston and in 1982, he received a Master of Architecture from Harvard University. While there, he studied the philosophy of science and also art theory with the expatriate Austrian artist Paul Rotterdam, whom Denari has cited as his most influential teacher. After graduate studies, he worked for five months as an intern in Paris for Aerospatiale (now Airbus), one of Europe’s largest aviation contractors. Following this excursion in Europe, Denari lived and worked in New York from 1983 to 1988. He worked at James Stewart Polshek & Partners as a senior designer before beginning to teach at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture and Planning in 1986. During this five year period in New York, Denari produced a series of self generated projects and participated in numerous exhibitions, most notably at P.S. 1 in Long Island City in the fall of 1986. That year he also won a Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Neil Denari founded his firm in Los Angeles in 1988. He began teaching at SCI-Arc that year and from 1997-2002, was the Director at this innovative school of architecture. Denari has used the city of Los Angeles as a resource and laboratory for urban and cultural experiments. In 1990-91, he worked on several small projects and taught architecture in Tokyo. This period of time, prior to the collapse of the Japanese bubble economy, gave Denari the opportunity to study both the historical and contemporary aspects of Japanese culture. These experiences have had a continued impact on the work of Neil Denari.

Gyroscopic Horizons, a book written by Denari documenting his architectural projects, his ideas, and theories on contemporary culture, was jointly published in September 1999 by Princeton Architectural Press and Thames and Hudson. It was Princeton’s top selling book for 1999. Currently Denari is at work on two books, a monograph of work since 2000 and an edited version of his notebook drawings produced since 1990.

The drawings and models of Neil Denari are part of seven permanent collections: Cooper-Hewitt, San Francisco MOMA, FRAC Centre Collection in Orleans, MOMA New York, Denver Art Museum, Heinz / Carnegie Collection, and MOMA Sydney. In 2002, Neil Denari’s work was chosen to be a part of the prestigious National Academy of Design’s Annual exhibition in New York, where he also received both the Samuel Morse Medal and the Richard Recchia Prize for his outstanding work.

He has given more than 150 lectures around the world about his work.