23W Artist-in-Residence: Sotirios Kotoulas

Artist talk 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 17, 2023
Loew Auditorium, Black Family Visual Arts Center
Opening reception to follow at 6:00 p.m. in the Jaffe-Friede Gallery, now relocated on the first floor of the Black Family Visual Arts Center.

Sotirios received his professional degree in architecture at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of the Cooper Union in New York. He received his M.Arch studying history and theory of architecture with Alberto Pérez-Gómez at McGill University, Montreal. His book, Space Out (edited by Lebbeus Woods and published by the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture in their book series with Springer Verlag, 2005) explores the spatial and material dimension of invisible and immeasurable electromagnetic phenomena. Sotirios has worked on several urban design and architecture projects in Israel, USA, China and Dubai. He was the recipient of the Abraham E. Kazan award for Urban Design Studies in New York City.

While continuing work in New York and Europe, Sotirios also manages and supervises specialized masonry construction projects in Canada, and executes national certified masonry building technology research and development on old and new buildings. He recently supervised the masonry construction for Alpha Masonry at the Wuskwatim Hydroelectric dam in Northern Canada and the restoration of Lower Fort Garry, a National Heritage site built in 1812. Sotirios was a research consultant at the Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design in New York City for the Lessons from Modernism exhibition that studied sustainable details and concepts in early modern architecture. A book was published for this exhibition and the exhibition traveled to the Elmhurst Museum in Chicago. Sotirios was visiting professor at the University of Puerto Rico, and the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico where he taught graduate and undergraduate design, urban architecture, and a graduate history and theory of architecture seminar. He taught a joint graduate design studio with Nader Tehrani and Jose Javier Toro at the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan and at MIT in Boston. He currently teaches a range of courses including studio, and history and theory seminars, at the University of Manitoba School of Architecture. He serves on the board of directors at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, he is the president of Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, and is the board chair of Basilica Hudson, in Hudson, New York. Sotirios also serves on the Anthology Film Archives board in New York City. He has designed artist studios for Garth Weiser and Francesca DiMattio in upstate New York and executed exhibition design for Garth Weiser Paintings: 2008 – 2017 at The Contemporary Austin. Currently, he is designing a house for artist Max Snow on the Snake River in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and a house for painter Katherine Bernhardt in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sotirios is renovating an existing structure on an 84 acre property near Ojai California for Kyle DeWoody. He was also the project manager for the restoration of Donald Judd's Architecture Office Building for the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Most notably, Sotirios designed a 71 unit masonry rental apartment building in downtown Winnipeg, Sherbrook Flats, and was in charge of construction administration for the project. The apartment building is 30% more efficient than the best case under the new National Energy Code for Canada. Currently, Sotirios and engineer John Wells are researching the dynamic thermal resistance of the building. 

https://www.alphamasonry.com

http://anthologyfilmarchives.org

http://basilicahudson.com

http://www.plugin.org

https://wso.ca