For years, the TWA Flight Center at New York’s John F Kennedy airport has stood stoically as time passed it by. Designed by Eero Saarinen and opened to the public in 1962, the iconic, undulating building has been sadly unoccupied since 2001 and is currently set for imminent redevelopment.
This weekend, Storefront for Art and Architecture honours a crucial figure in the building’s legacy – the American architectural photographer Ezra Stoller, who founded Esto, the first photographic agency specialising in architecture and the built environment. Born in 1915 in Chicago and then pursuing architecture at New York University, Stoller is famed for documenting many of the world’s modern landmarks, including Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and Saarinen’s Bell Labs Holmdel Complex. He died in 2004.
Hosted at the terminal, Storefront for Art and Architecture’s spring benefit, ‘Beyond Borders’, serves as the last public event held at the building before it begins its new life.
Erica Stoller, Ezra’s daughter and an artist herself, says, ‘There have been many bittersweet moments in considering the TWA building over the years. Now, with preservation in mind and major changes on the way, the early images have an enduring presence and an even stronger impact as we anticipate the future.’
The event is accompanied by a silent auction of over 50 works from artists, designers and architects, such as Enoc Perez, Keith Sonnier, Thom Mayne, David Adjaye, Álvaro Siza, M
isha Kahn and Lindsey Adelman. There is also a specially commissioned photograph of the TWA Flight Center by Richard Barnes, and the first ever colour edition of a photograph from the iconic series of the terminal by Ezra Stoller.
This weekend, Storefront for Art and Architecture honours a crucial figure in the building’s legacy – the American architectural photographer Ezra Stoller, who founded Esto – in the form of a benefit entitled ’Beyond Borders’
Hosted at the terminal, ’Beyond Borders’ serves as the last public event held at the building before it begins its new life
The event is accompanied by a silent auction of over 50 works from artists, designers and architects, such as Enoc Perez, Keith Sonnier, Thom Mayne, David Adjaye, Álvaro Siza, M
isha Kahn and Lindsey Adelman
There is also a specially commissioned photograph of the TWA Flight Center by Richard Barnes, and the first ever colour edition of a photograph from the iconic series of the terminal by Ezra Stoller
Erica Stoller, Ezra’s daughter, says, ‘... with preservation in mind and major changes on the way, the early images have an enduring presence and an even stronger impact as we anticipate the future’
INFORMATION
The ’Beyond Borders’ auction is live on Artspace. For more details and to bid, visit Artspace’s website. A limited number of general admission tickets for the benefit are also available. Tickets start at $450 for the main event and $75 for the after party. For more information, visit the event’s Eventbrite website.
All photography: TWA Flight Center, 1962. Copyright Ezra Stoller/Esto. Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery
-
Year in review: top 10 design stories of 2024Wallpaper* magazine's 10 most-read design stories of 2024 whisk us from fun Ikea pieces to the man who designed the Paris Olympics, and 50 years of the Rubik's Cube
-
Sharon Smith's Polaroids capture 1980s New York nightlifeIDEA Books has launched a new monograph of Smith’s photographs, titled Camera Girl and edited by former editor-in-chief of LIFE magazine, Bill Shapiro
-
A multifaceted Beverly Hills house puts the beauty of potentiality in the frameA Beverly Hills house in Trousdale, designed by Robin Donaldson, brings big ideas to the residential scale
-
Inside Luna Luna: the amusement park designed by artists lands in New York‘Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy’ – featuring rides by Basquiat, Lichtenstein, Hockney, Haring, and Dalí – has opened at The Shed
-
Henni Alftan’s paintings frame everyday moments in cinematic renditionsConcurrent exhibitions in New York and Shanghai celebrate the mesmerising mystery in Henni Alftan’s paintings
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next DoorThe Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New YorkViolet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American WestThe artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990sNew York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black menThe late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
