Scratching the Surface

Denis Weil is the dean of IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. After studying chemical engineering, Denis has worked across every sector of the design industry, from product design to marketing, including leading design and innovation at McDonald’s, studying civic design at Harvard, and serving as an innovation fellow for Bloomberg Philanthropies. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jarrett and Denis talk about how this background informs his work at IIT, the role of the designer in civic engagement, and the limits of design thinking. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/173-denis-weil.

Martha Thorne is the Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design and the executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a latter of which she’s held since 2005 and will be stepping down from next month. Previously she was Associate Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago. In this episode, Jarrett and Martha talk about the expanding definitions of architecture, the intersection of the aesthetic and the humanitarian in architecture practice, and how the Pritzker has evolved over the years. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/172-martha-thorne.

Robert Wiesenberger is a curator and historian of modern and contemporary art, design, and architecture. He is currently the Associate Curator of Special Projects at The Clark Art Institute and on the faculty at Williams Graduate Program in Art History. He previously was a curatorial fellow at the Harvard Art Museum where he worked with the Bauhaus collection and co-authored, with David Reinfurt, the 2017 monograph on Muriel Cooper. In this episode, Jarrett and Robert talk about the role of the object in art history, blurring the lines between design and art practices, and teaching design history. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/171-robert-wiesenberger.

Jarrett Earnest is an artist and writer. His book, What It Means To Write About Art: Interviews with Art Critics, was released in 2018 and features longform interviews with art writers, historians, theorists, and critics. Jarrett’s writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, The Village Voice, Vulture, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. In this episode, the Jarretts talk about the strange similarities in their work, the differences between writing about art and design, and the value in having deep conversations about art. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/170-jarrett-earnest.

Spencer Bailey is a writer, editor, and journalist. He is the co-founder of the media company The Slowdown and the author of the book In Memory of: Designing Contemporary Memorials. He’s also editor-at-large for Phaidon, contributing editor at Town and Country and was previously the editor-in-chief at Surface. In this episode, Jarrett and Spencer talk about the design of memorials, how he started writing about design and architecture, and how design fits into The Slowdown’s mission. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/169-spencer-bailey.

Janet Abrams is a writer, editor, journalist, and artist. Her new book, Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bauhaus: Profiles in Architecture and Design, collects her profiles of designers like Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Muriel Cooper, and Paul Rand from her time writing for Blueprint and I.D. magazine. In this episode, Jarrett and Janet reflect on the design writing of the late eighties, talk about the art of profile writing, and where her work in writing and ceramics intersect. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/168-janet-abrams.

Alice Grandoit, Nu Goteh, and Marquise Stillwell are the co-founders of Deem, a new journal that positions design as a social practice. Their first issue, Design for Dignity, features a range of stories, interviews, and profiles of practitioners both inside and outside design. In this conversation, Jarrett talks with them about Deem’s goals, opening up design to more people, and how publishing a printed journal is a political act. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/167-alice-grandoit-nu-goteh-marquise-stillwell.

Nikil Saval is a writer, editor, activist, and the newly elected Pennsylvania state senator. He was previously a co-editor of n+1 and wrote about design, architecture, and urbanism for The New Yorker and The New York Times. In this episode, recorded right before the election, Jarrett and Nikil talk about the intersection of design and politics, how writing and editing are similar to legislating, and why he finds designers fascinating. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/166-nikil-saval.

Alicia Cheng is a founding partner of the New York design studio MGMT and the author of the book This Is What Democracy Looked Like: A Visual History of the Printed Ballot. She previously worked as a designer for Method, was a co-design director at the Cooper Hewitt, and is currently an external critic for the MFA program at RISD. In this episode, Jarrett and Alicia talk about how the design of ballots can teach us about the United States’s uneasy relationship with voting, mixing design history with American history, and how research feeds her design practice. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/165-alicia-cheng.

Kyle Chayka writes about art, technology, design, and the systems that shape culture. His first book, The Longing for Less, is a cultural history of minimalism that looks at minimalist movements in art, music, and philosophy. In this episode, Jarrett and Kyle talk about how minimalism often obscures complex systems, how all culture writing is also design writing, and the role of structure in his writing process. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm/164-kyle-chayka.