Engineering Art: Arup's Tate

This presentation scrutinizes the role of engineers in the production of contemporary art and its institutions. In the context of art production, engineers work as problem solvers, engaged to execute an artist’s proposal; as extra-disciplinary interlocutors with whom an artist may collaborate to conceive of projects beyond their own imaginings; and as overseers who certify that the craftsmanship of fabricators and installers is structurally sound. In the domain of architecture, engineers may consult on everything from a building’s concept engineering and master planning to its lighting and HVAC. The indelible imprint of the engineering firm Arup on London’s Tate Modern demonstrates how these two domains -- the engineering of artworks and the engineering of institutions -- are closely related. In this case study, we see how Arup has engineered Tate’s architecture and urban context, as well as many of its most iconic artworks, such as Shibboleth (2007) by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo. This fact implicates individual works of art into a larger ecology of production that spans local and global scales. It also calls into consideration the politics of engineering, and the extent to which an engineer’s professional and corporate ideology inflects upon the work(s) they produce.