urban museum of modern architecture: new haven
2002 - 2004

UMMA: New Haven was a two-year city-wide architecture exhibition featuring New Haven's significant collection of modern buildings, designed between 1950 and 1975 by the American architects Gordon Bunshaft, Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph, Eero Saarinen and Robert Venturi. Treating the city itself as a museum, the project provided free informative brochures about the seven participating buildings in each lobby. GRO Architects was commissioned to design and fabricate unique 6' info-kiosks to house the brochures -- each referencing design elements of the building in which it was housed -- and Little Spoons, Inc. provided the project’s graphic identity. The brochures contained the kind of information that gallery labels provide: the architect’s name, dates of design and construction, and building materials, as well as noting important collaborators that are often not recognized, such as the structural engineers and builders. In addition, each brochure included a quote from the architect about the building, a historical timeline that contextualized the building’s design and construction period within American history , a 400-word interpretive text, 4 images, and a walking map of all seven buildings. The project was funded by small donations from twenty institutional donors, including Yale University, the Connecticut Architecture Foundation, and the Connecticut Humanities Council. Brown created, funded and executed the project for course credit as a PhD student in Yale’s History of Art Department. UMMA: New Haven was also the subject of an exhibition at the New Haven Museum co-curated by Marisa Angell Brown, GRO Architects and Little Spoons in 2004.

building list

Yale University Art Gallery / Louis I. Kahn / 1951-1953
David S. Ingalls Hockey Rink / Eero Saarinen / 1956-1958
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library / Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill / 1960-1963
The Art & Architecture Building / Paul Rudolph / 1958-1963
Crawford Manor / Paul Rudolph / 1962-1966
Dixwell Fire Station / Robert Venturi and John Rauch / 1967-1974
The Yale Center for British Art / Louis I. Kahn / 1969-1977