Close to Home

Amy Thompson
IAR 222
Close To Home Analysis
The Close to Home Exhibition was built to celebrate Modernism in Greensboro. Edward Loewenstein is one of the main focuses in this exhibit. His work is a great example of "Modernism on the local landscape." This exhibit also includes photographs, drawings and texts that show local Modernism. Close to Home is a successful exhibition for many reasons. The five reasons that I am going to talk about are: the concept of the installation; the material, light, and color selections that manifest the concept; how the images, texts, and graphics support your understanding of the concept; how different types of media do different kinds of work; and the impact on visitors.
I think the main concept of the installation is the notion of exposing structural systems. Edward Loewenstein believed in an exposing many structural elements. This installation shows all connections and joints, and there are no hidden building materials. In addition to the structural systems exposed, this installation has clean lines, slanted beams and walls, and high ceilings. These are all reflections of Loewenstein’s work. He convinces you that Modernism does not have to be "cold."
The material, light, and color selections successfully manifest the concept. From what I could tell, the main materials that were used in the installation were wood, wire rods, and screws. All of the screws were in plain sight to add to the concept of exposing structural systems. The joints were painted in green to emphasize the structural system. Lighting is focused on the main points of the exhibit. These main points would be the images, texts, and graphics, along with the structural system.
Understanding the concept of the Close to Home exhibit would be more difficult if it was not for all the images, texts, and graphics. First of all, the texts help you understand the background. The text in this exhibit explains what Modernism is and how it is used locally, it also explains who Edward Loewenstein is and what kind of work he is known for. The images give you an idea of the local examples of Modernism. The Close to Home exhibit also includes graphics. There are two computer-generated walk-throughs, similar to SketchUp. This gives you a more realistic view of a Modern building than the texts and graphics.
Different types of media do different types of "work" within the exhibit. The media, data, in other words, includes the images, texts, and graphics. The intent of these different types of media, as I stated before, is to relay information. Out of these three, I think the pictures and graphics are more successful than the texts. The main reason I believe this is probably because I am more of a visual learner. If the exhibit contained only text and no pictures, it would be very boring. Though, if there were only pictures and no text, you probably wouldn’t understand the concept. So all of the different types of are very important in this exhibit.
The Close to Home exhibit impacts the visitors of the three-dimensional human experience as the exhibit components interact with the specific space in which they were installed. From my point of view, this exhibit was very interesting. The installation was amazing and very structurally successful with the concept. This exhibit was also very informational. In conclusion, the Close to Home Exhibition was very helpful to me as far as understand Modernism locally.