Featuring more than 30 unique, exclusive activities around the world with notable figures in art, architecture, and design
NEW YORK, May 7, 2014—Van Alen Institute, an organization dedicated to advancing innovation in architecture and urban design, today launched the Auction of Design Experiences with online art and auction platform Paddle8, featuring more than 30 one-of-a-kind experiences around the world, including a home-cooked Milanese dinner with MoMA senior curator Paola Antonelli in New York City; a private tour of the Richard Meier Model Museum with architect Richard Meier and a cocktail at one of his favorite bars in New York; a helicopter ride with renowned architectural photographer Iwan Baan on an upcoming shoot in Chicago, Los Angeles or Paris; a personal graphic design consultation with Project Projects founder Prem Krishnamurthy, and many more.
Bidding for the Auction of Design Experiences opens Wednesday, May 7, and closes Thursday, May 22, online at: (URL)
The auction leads up to the Van Alen Institute Spring Party on Wednesday, May 21 at The High Line Hotel, celebrating the Institute’s 120-year legacy of innovative projects in the field of architecture and urbanism. Acclaimed Australian electro-pop artist White Prism will perform, with a party to follow. From May 9-19, the Institute also presents its Spring 2014 Events, an eleven-day slate of public workshops, films, tours, performances, conversations, tech demonstrations, and more inviting the public to explore the effects of urban life on the mind and body, and ask questions about how the design of cities can enhance well-being.
Highlights from Van Alen Institute’s Auction of Design Experiences:
Enjoy a home-cooked Milanese meal with Museum of Modern Art senior curator Paola Antonelli for you and three guests.
Join Aaron Betsky, former Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, for tea over Skype to discuss the biggest challenges and opportunities in contemporary design.
Take a motorbike tour of Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine region with Allied Works Architecture principal Brad Cloepfil, including a private tour and tasting at Sokol Blosser Winery’s new tasting room, designed by Allied Works.
Join architect Sharon Davis for a private tour of her Women’s Opportunity Center in Kayonza, Rwanda.
Invite architectural photographer Francis Dzikowski to photograph your home or interior of your choice.
Visit Freecell Architecture’s Brooklyn studio, where they will envision and sketch your dream item of furniture.
Explore the Bell Labs Holmdel Complex in New Jersey, a now vacant 472-acre modernist campus designed by Eero Saarinen and opened in 1962, with a private tour led by architect Alexander Gorlin.
Visit to the Cristian Grajales Gallery in SoHo for tips on starting a design collection, followed by a studio visit with Chilean-born artist Sebastian Errazuriz.
Enjoy a graphic design consultation on an identity system with Prem Krishnamurthy, founding principal of design studio Project Projects and founder of P! exhibition space.
Join architect Richard Meier for a private tour of the Richard Meier Model Museum, followed by a cocktail at one of his favorite places.
About Van Alen Institute
Since its founding in 1894, Van Alen Institute has promoted innovative thinking about the role of architecture and design in civic life. Today the Institute’s competitions, research, and public programs shape the public conversation and bring design excellence to the built environment of cities and sites around the world. Van Alen’s widely influential legacy of competitions includes Public Property: An Ideas Competition for Governors Island (1996), which kicked off an international conversation about Governors Island and its redevelopment as a public resource, and TKTS2K: A Competition to Design a New York Icon (1999), which led to the TKTS booth in Times Square and reactivated the public space at the busiest pedestrian intersection in New York City. Learn more about Van Alen Institute at past.vanalen.org.
About Paddle8
Paddle8 is an online auction house, connecting buyers and sellers of fine art and collectibles across the Internet. Paddle8 presents two types of auctions: curated auctions of art and collectibles under $100,000, and benefit auctions in collaboration with non-profits. To date, Paddle8 has collaborated with over 200 non-profit organizations worldwide to present their benefit auctions online, dramatically expanding the audience of supporters and fundraising results for each non-profit partner. The company was founded in 2011 by Alexander Gilkes, an auctioneer and LVMH veteran, and Aditya Julka, a Harvard Business School MBA and serial entrepreneur. Paddle8 is funded by VC firm Founder Collective (past investments include Uber, Vimeo, Buzzfeed), the investment group Mousse Partners (past investments include Paperless Post, Warby Parker, Bonobos), artist Damien Hirst, art dealer Jay Jopling; Alexander von Furstenberg, and Matthew Mellon.