Famed Chicago Architects Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton Pick Their Favorite Works From the Artnet Galleries Network

by admin

Mar 19, 2020

artnet

Ever since their breakout 1981
Steel + Glass House
presented an elegant challenge to the post-modern architectural
norms of the era, Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton have been at the
center of Chicago’s architecture world. Their award-winning
practice, Krueck + Sexton, consistently pushes the
boundaries of the built environment while driving the national
conversation.

Besides Ron’s status as a collector and art philanthropist—and
his designation as “the collector’s architect”—art has always
played a role in Ron and Mark’s practice. They once designed an
apartment for a client who wanted to “live within a painting,” and
Mark has a rich background in design, including long-term advisory
involvement at his alma mater, IIT, where he was recently elected
to the Board of Trustees.

We sat down with Ron, who has
been collaborating with Mark for over 40 years, to hear his
thoughts on sustainability and how art and architecture can work
together. Further below, we also interviewed the architects about
their favorite artists, movies, and dinner party menu
items.

You once designed an apartment for a client who wanted to
“live
within a painting.” What was that process like, and how
did you translate art into architecture?

Ron: It’s
interesting that you focus on this design. Once a client opens the
door with a statement like that, realities seem to disappear, and
one is given an empty canvas. Functions needed to be suppressed.
Light played a major part in the solution, and I remember a critic
referencing László Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator. I guess [the client] ended up with more of a
sculpture than a painting, but it was a good ending.

Your firm has made major strides in sustainable architecture.
How do you make it an essential part of the process, and how can
the architecture industry move toward making sustainability the
norm, not the exception?

Ron: Hopefully,
it’s ingrained in the process, like in so much work today. It’s
important to establish this criteria with the client initially. And
it’s also really about
ingraining the concept in the minds of the young architects who
come to work in our office. It’s become a fundamental attitude for
this generation, and there is great hope. They insist that we
explore solutions.

Have you ever had clients ask you to design a space where
they can display art, and how do you approach that as an
architect?

Ron: At the Illinois Institute of Technology, this
was always one of the initial space studies that was developed by
Mies van der Rohe. It was considered a spatial amplifier, almost
like an exclamation mark or a period at the end of a sentence. It
was almost essential for Mies.

We have had only one client who
wanted to integrate art into his home, but he had no art. In that
case, the spatial solution was worked on as a complete composition
in itself. He asked us to help him find works for three major
walls, and we found an 18-foot [Gerhard] Richter, a 22-foot [John] Chamberlain, and a shaped [Tom] Wesselmann lips canvas for a wall
that he didn’t want a rectangle on. He has since added works to
this initial foundation.

Do you think your training as an architect impacts your
approach to collecting art?

Ron: As an
architectural student, one develops their visual senses in terms of
proportion, scale, space, speed of a curve, or surface. Having
one’s eyes tuned in this way is a marvelous gift, so yes. However,
art is another world. For me, it’s a world of dialogue and
abstractions, and I approach it as an observer. For me, there is
usually an immediate response. The work has to sparkle and have
joy. The works we buy have continued to give us that immediate
happiness, and I have continued to mature with them.