Nick Tobier awarded Graham Foundation Grant
The Graham Foundation selected Nick Tobier’s Small(er) Building Types for a project grant The Graham Foundation.
Small(er) Building Types is a compendium of the small buildings whose tectonic forms you are not supposed to notice, but whose social roles punctuate daily routines. Surrounded by a commercial canopy advertising off-brand beer, or at the edge of the Culver’s parking lot, these buildings are doing their best to go unremarked. But this is not just one isolated building to ignore. This is a typology. Who designs these? Are they the products of architects with extreme humility? Or are these small buildings punching above their weight class for the civic importance they serve?
Through a series of broadsides distributed and exhibited first with their subjects as host — Bodegas, gas station convenience stores will be depicted through measured drawings, sketches and interviews with the people who interact with them.
Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society.