Conversation: Architects New Affiliates and Norman Kelley on Bruce Goff

Why It Matters

Goff’s rediscovered material and artistic practices provide a blueprint for today’s architects seeking innovative, context‑driven design, while the exhibition reinforces the value of archival research in shaping future architectural discourse.

Key Takeaways

• Bruce Goff’s material experiments inspire contemporary firms New Affiliates, Norman Kelley.
• Exhibition reveals Goff’s “Realia” collection, everyday objects shaping his architecture.
• Goff’s six‑decade painting practice used Day‑Glo, collage, never before exhibited.
• New Affiliates reinterpret three Goff houses through graphic‑novel style drawings.
• Norman Kelley’s Tulsa study examines four overlooked Goff Art Deco buildings.

Summary

The Art Institute of Chicago hosted a conversation linking its new exhibition "Bruce Goff: Material Worlds" with two contemporary firms—New Affiliates and Norman Kelley—who draw inspiration from Goff’s unconventional approach. Curators Alison Fisher, Harold and Margot Schiff, and Craig Lee introduced the show, highlighting installations that reinterpret Goff’s domestic projects through graphic‑novel drawings and discuss the firms’ own design practices.

The program emphasized two underexplored facets of Goff’s legacy: his extensive "Realia" archive of everyday objects that informed his material choices, and a prolific, six‑decade painting practice featuring Day‑Glo colors, stenciling, and mixed‑media collage. Speakers noted Goff’s ambivalent position in architectural history—neither fully insider nor outsider—citing his controversial self‑description and widespread coverage in Life and Vogue magazines.

Specific examples included the 1927 Tulsa Club, a limestone‑clad skyscraper later reborn as a boutique hotel, the Riverside Studio’s hybrid music‑residence design, the Guaranty Laundry’s industrial Art Deco façade, and the Pittsburgh Equitable Meter factory. Norman Kelley’s studio examined these four buildings, revealing how Goff’s playful materiality and contextual responsiveness still resonate.

The discussion underscored Goff’s lasting impact on contemporary architecture, exhibition design, and pedagogy. By surfacing his archival materials and lesser‑known works, the exhibition and dialogue encourage architects to embrace material experimentation, interdisciplinary references, and a non‑dogmatic design ethos.

Original Description

In his more than six–decade career, architect Bruce Goff designed over 500 projects and completed about 150 buildings. His creative life and daring body of work continue to inspire contemporary architects.

In this conversation, "Bruce Goff: Material Worlds" co-curators Alison Fisher and Craig Lee join leading architects from the firms New Affiliates and Norman Kelley to explore how Goff’s life and work informs their practice today.

This discussion features two architects from each firm—Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb of New York-based New Affiliates, who designed the Goff exhibition, and Thomas Kelley and Carrie Norman of Norman Kelley, based in Chicago and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Both firms have launched their own explorations of Bruce Goff’s work in recent years to produce new projects and pedagogical ideas.

This program is made possible by the R. Solomon Lectureship Fund.