Spotlight On Architecture: NLÉ

Thu, Oct 22 - Thu, Oct 22  2015

The title of the 2015 edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial is ‘The State of the Art of Architecture’ and there are five Dutch participants. One of them is NLÉ. 

NLÉ is founded in 2010 by Kunlé Adeyemi and based in Lagos and Amsterdam. They are quickly fulfilling their mission to shape the physical, human, cultural and economic architectures of developing cities. With several remarkable projects such as ‘ROCK – Chicago Lakefront Kiosk’ – you can read more about this below, as wel as the corresponding exhibition ‘Rock & The Bean’ – we thought it was time for a spotlight on this notable agency. 

NLÉ’s Philosophy

“One of the megacentury’’s dominant and unstoppable trends is urbanization. The outcome is a growing number of megacities worldwide, all of which face the same challenges. Within this context – just as Silicon Valley acts as the home for new technologies, it is the cities of the developing world that will generate responsible solutions for the larger world.
As thinkers, creatives and agents of change, NLÉ’’s role is to reveal these solutions and apply them so that we shape the physical, human and commercial structures that are critical to the near future of human civilization.
Our activities encompass city development research and strategy advisory service, conceptualization and creative structuring, architecture and product design, infrastructure design, arts and cultural urban interventions.
Our activities encompass city development research and strategy advisory service, conceptualization and creative structuring, architecture and product design, infrastructure design, arts and cultural urban interventions.
Across all these fields we explore the infusion of relevant global ideas and the advanced technologies that add sustainable value. And our global and diverse network of experts and collaborators, as well as our products and our services, are of world-class quality and integrity. At the same time, we ensure authentic relevance through the deployment of local resources, capacity building and economy of means.
In this way, NLÉ acts as a new language for shaping and advancing the multiple physical and human architectures of the megacentury.” 

NLÉ Work: Rock – Chicago Lakefront Kiosk

ROCK, the Chicago Lakefront Kiosk is made by NLÉ, in collaboration with the School of Art Institute of Chicago. It’s an pop-up pavilion- a public sculpture- composed from the raw and historic limestone blocks that once protected the city’s shoreline. Its bold yet sensuous and delicate balance transforms Chicago’s lakefront into a magnet for social and cultural life. 
Sited at Montrose Beach, by the Great Lake Michigan, the kiosk is conceived as an ‘infrastructure box’ consisting of materials and technologies that are found at or belong to the local environment. The composition’s climate resilient limestone and concrete elements can be uniquely assembled each time to suit different locations, vendors and uses along the lakefront ­­- by providing shelter whilst contributing to the shoreline protection.

NLÉ Exhibition: ‘Rock & The Bean’ 

‘ROCK & The Bean’ is work in progress – a moment in the state of the art of architecture – in the green heart of Chicago’s famous Millennium Park. The exhibition consists of salvaged historic raw limestone rocks that once protected the city’s shoreline, stacked in a ‘depository’ in the south side, now midway on their journey to be repurposed into a new life as ROCK – a contemporary pop-up pavilion/lakefront kiosk at Montrose Beach.
Conceived by NLÉ in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), the exhibition is a space for public participation, education and interaction between man and material. For the next 3 months during the Chicago Architecture Biennial we invite the public to come add value to these 1930s limestone rocks, by participating in artist facilitated carving, painting, performances and other unimagined processes.
Chicago residents and visitors will recognize their contribution to the lakefront kiosk for years to come, as it becomes a permanent part of the lakefront kiosk and the City of Chicago.