Daniel Kaven

Published by Birkhäuser | $75
ISBN: 978-3-0356-2438-0 | 456 pages
8.5 x 11 in. | Cloth-covered hardback

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About the Book:

Daniel Kaven’s Architecture of Normal explores the dissonance between the overwhelming American landscape and the underwhelming architecture of its strip malls, fast food chains, motels and tract housing. Part travelogue, art book and architectural survey, the book charts the patterns created by reigning modes of transportation and examines how we came to accept the bland, branded boxes lining America’s streets and freeways. Beginning with a portrait of ambulatory Native American societies and the introduction of horses by the Spanish, Kaven discusses the built environment as it has been shaped by trains, cars, planes and rockets, and looks toward a future architecture defined by autonomous cars and air taxis. This highly visual narrative includes extensive historical photography and Kaven’s own art.

Artist Statement:

“Much of what I witnessed as a child was what could be gleaned from a car window as it sped past the exits along an interstate or a wide, multi-lane boulevard in my home state of New Mexico. Burger King, Shilo Inn, Walmart, McDonald’s, KB Home and 7-Eleven evoke immediate brand recognition among anyone who has looked away from the asphalt along a freeway or street in the American West in the last few decades. Not only have the logos of these companies been forever branded into the American landscape, but their architecture has been tattooed into our psyches. The facades and the financial models behind them have profoundly influenced my understanding of the world and that which an entire society accepts as its vernacular architecture for the present and foreseeable future.

In the weeks leading up to my 40th birthday, I took an epic road trip. I drove east from Los Angeles through the desert highways, pueblos and truck stops of my childhood in search of an understanding of the western architecture that I have always associated with home. This aesthetic lubricates my art and, conversely, represents the antithesis of my approach to design and urban planning. When I wasn’t driving the open road, I photographed and filmed the architecture of strip malls, fast food restaurants, Indian casinos and tract housing. I slept in roadside motels. I ate in diners and devoured drive-thru cheeseburgers. I envisioned what the future of America looks like and considered how we arrived where we are today. Architecture of Normal was born from this vision quest.”

THE BROADWAY PLAN is William / Kaven Architecture's proposed redevelopment of Portland’s Broadway Corridor. The conceptual plan, which would provide approximately 5 million square feet of new development, consists of multiple high-rise buildings with a mix of uses that includes retail, office, hospitality and residential. The bold concept would reconnect Union Station to the Pearl District by removing the Broadway ramp and subsequently create a pedestrian-centric district organized around an extension of the North Park Blocks. Further, William / Kaven's vision integrates the potential for a marquee transportation hub for high-speed rail and underground mass public transit innovations adjacent to Amtrak’s Union Station.

The two tallest central towers, one of which would exceed 970 vertical feet, would be interlinked by a glass-enclosed botanical bridge spanning 236 feet across the North Park Blocks some 680 feet in the air, providing dramatic aerial views of the entire city. Additional buildings situated along the park would deliver a diversity of mixed building typologies, ranging from affordable to market-rate residential with ground-floor retail and office. Other elements of the plan include four residential towers, an indoor market fronting the north end of the park blocks, a museum and a block-long reflecting pool. A glass-covered park with play structures and food carts that could be enjoyed in all seasons would occupy the block between Union Station and the new district.

Located near Charlevoix on the shores of Lake Michigan, CAMP MINOH embodies the rugged ethos of Midwestern life. A legacy of French trappers, Ojibwa Indians, Chicago mobsters, and even Ernest Hemingway adds to the diverse heritage of the site. Nestled among the pine and birch trees, Camp Minoh is positioned to face the strong winter winds that head south across the lake from the Upper Peninsula and Canada.

Designed as a refuge for extended family gatherings, the interior plays between solid and open spaces. The ground floor acts as the main gathering space, with a long linear connected floor plan. Formal polished concrete floors and rugged exposed Doug Fir beams make up the ceiling while a dark and rich palette further anchors the space. The upper floor uses light-reflective oak accents, creating an intentional contrast between the harbored ground floor below. A cantilevered living section and framing views of the lake add to this concept of airiness, serving to connect the interior space with the dramatic exterior environment.

Situated at the corner of North Williams Avenue and Shaver Street, PARALLAX is a five-story mixed-use development, including 63 market-rate apartments over premium retail space fronting the thriving Williams Corridor. The base consists of glazed aluminum storefront that engages the Shaver and Williams frontages at the public street level. A salvaged section of "The Machine," an iconic mural that once adorned the facade of the pre-existing warehouse, now wraps around the corner of Parallax's base level, joining the lobby with the parking garage. A glass, steel and metal canopy serves to shelter the sidewalk and simultaneously strikes a datum at the building’s transition from glass public base to a dynamically designed upper facade.

The upper facade at the apartment units uses brick masonry veneer, a historically relevant material re-imagined in modern form. The large, staggered windows at residences allude to their more private program and appear as punched openings despite being floor-to-ceiling. Additionally, the staggered windows at each floor lend the elevation a dynamic movement, with metal panels angled and oriented in opposing directions. The panels together read as a gradient color change from different perspectives. In effect, the building reads differently driving down Williams or walking the opposite direction. This parallax reinforces both the building’s and the neighborhood’s dynamism.  

The roof terrace on the top floor of the southeast corner begins to break down the building’s mass and scale, negotiating a transition to its residential neighbors. At the same time, the terrace commands spectacular views of Mt. Hood, while the large west-facing windows capture views of downtown Portland and the west hills. Parallax seeks to elevate the streetscape along North Williams while capturing the energy and vitality of a growing neighborhood.

In CATCH + RELEASE, Kaven explores the construct of Miami’s rich architectural history colliding with today’s culture of disposal. Kaven tracks the ubiquitous concrete forms equally at work building modern masterpieces and exurban track homes throughout Miami’s cultural landscape. The forms, mundane as shaped by the unimaginative or richly animated when directed at the hand of a master, have provided the artist with a rich foundation on which he intends to build further sculptural work.

DIVORCE represents the imbalance between the pursuit of the the American dream and the sanctity of family. Inherent in the quest of the American capitalistic ideal is the risk of failure and destruction. Divorce explores a man's, or everyman’s, fracture and fall from grace through fresh, naive eyes not yet encumbered by Man’s quest for success.

The narrative unfolds through fragments of images, fictitious business documents and political advertisements, and suburban homes abandoned during construction.

ELEMENTS is situated on a complex site in Mosier, Oregon with sweeping views of the Columbia River Gorge and the Mosier Syncline. The home is comprised of an expansive open living space on the upper level that is separated from the harsh elements and the steep hillside only by a wall of glass continuous across the view to the gorge below. A dramatic terrace cantilevers extensively towards the river west and provides covered exterior living.

The lower plinth of the structure, from which numerous rectangular forms cantilever from above, house the primary sleeping quarters which steps down onto the ground and connects with the surrounding landscape.

ELEMENTS was completed in the Spring of 2012. 

ROOM 244 was commissioned as a site-specific installation for Gallery 500 during the Jupiter Art Fair in 2004, curated by Stuart Horodner (Artistic Director, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center). 

WEAR + TEAR was designed as an immersive film + photographic installation. The photographic plates were mounted in sections to large-form LED light boxes and shown in conjunction with the filmwork, utilizing light emanating only from the art and installations to illuminate the entire gallery.

WEAR + TEAR was designed as an immersive film + photographic installation. The photographic plates were mounted in sections to large-form LED light boxes and shown in conjunction with the filmwork, utilizing light emanating only from the art and installations to illuminate the entire gallery.

The North House was designed and developed by Kaven as a three-unit, multi-family project with expansive rooftop terraces and private courtyards. Each unit contains two bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms over approximately 1,500 sf and is accessed along a breezeway flanked by lush foliage.

The project was recognized by the City of Portland as being one of the most ecologically advanced projects of its kind when it was completed. In addition to the increased residential capacity for the small site, the project contains passive cooling systems that are serviced by stack ventilation through the open stairwells, trombé walls, hydronic radiant heat, on-demand hot water, on-site disposal of rainwater, pervious asphalt parking along the alley, and extensive use of recycled structural and finish materials.

INTERCHANGE was conceived as a modern domus. As an alternative to a simplistic site division between front and backyard, the dwelling would be organized around a central court. The courtyard becomes the outdoor circulation zone and the destination that unifies all activities. One is never entirely indoors or outdoors, but rather is continually living among the two environments, with the slender rooms borrowing light, air and view from beyond the threshold while the courtyard extends its own boundaries through reflections of itself in the glass that surrounds it.

Clean lines and modern details are always the most revealing of imperfection, and it is in these elements of the finished building that the dedication of the contractors and tradesmen is most evident; butt glazing meets at clean corners, oak stairs appear sculpted from a single block, trim is flush with biscuit joints, counters are expansive and seamless, and the monolithic fire pit emerges from the ground solid yet refined, the hearth of the home.

William Kaven was recognized in 2011 for the design of Interchange by the American Institute of Architects.

Interchange in the Wall Street Journal:
”Building a Redefined Life” by Nancy Keates

Naked Seoul follows an American expatriate mysteriously adrift in Seoul in search of a vice to satiate her neon-induced insomnia by way of interminable subway rides, Missy clubs and country karaoke music.

The film was shot on the streets and within the cavernous buildings of Seoul with available light on a small digital video camera by Kaven and a small crew in 2003.

The film screened within Kaven's Immersive Media installation in 2004. The art critic Richard Speer (ARTnews, Newsweek, Art Limited, Willamette Week) wrote in his review that “It’s a hypnotic short, each frame was immaculately composed and color-corrected. This is the kind of installation seldom seen and direly needed.”