Lebbeus Woods's extraordinary proficiency and mastery in different media was matched by his steady and fast pace of exploration. Riet Eeckhout, a drawings researcher and drawer herself, who teaches at KU Leuven, ponders this dexterity. Her focus is on the rigour of Woods's early works produced in Mylar and pastels, and on the carefully delimited spatial vocabulary – agency obtained through the capacity of the drawing to function outside explicit representation.
A life-long beacon for Lebbeus Woods was his understanding of the ideas of second-order cybernetics and attempts to assimilate them into his architectural projects. An introduction to this discourse was provided in Urbana-Champaign in the early 1960s by his most important intellectual mentor, cyberneticist Heinz von Foerster. Poised at the intersection of architecture and cybernetics, Ben Sweeting charts some of the lines of their interactions and friendship.
When an architectural argonaut whose creative life was spent on a quest to open more possibilities for architecture meets another, a special mutual respect is instilled. Peter Cook, Archigram co-founder and doyen of the Architectural Association (AA) in the 1980s, recalls his initial encounter and some of the moments he has shared with Lebbeus Woods over the decades.
The American Midwest with its own architectural histories and topologies may be termed a land of few walls. Architect Kevin Erickson examines Lebbeus Woods's relation to this landscape and the genesis of his preoccupation with walls, not as protectors of boundaries, but as sites of dialogue and collaboration. Rather than mere surfaces for large paintings, walls – new or abandoned – invite reflection on the relationship between art and architecture.
Some of Lebbeus Woods's formative years were spent on the ‘flat, treeless plain’ at the University of Illinois School of Architecture and at various home and studio addresses in Urbana-Champaign. Architectural historian Sharon Irish describes the dynamic setting of this urban stage and Woods's personal and professional preoccupations of the time.
Visiting Italy in 1978 as part of his own Grand Tour, Lebbeus Woods was able to see some of the treasures of the Renaissance and the Baroque. The ensuing mix of reality and imagination prompted the Editors of this 2, Aleksandra Wagner and Neil Spiller, to consider the visual travelogue –Cityscapes – in a similar manner, combining speculation and truth.
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