Troy Conrad Therrien

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Troy Conrad Therrien (born 1981) is a New York museum curator and architecture adjunct. Since 2014, Therrien has been the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's Head Curator of Architecture and Digital Initiatives. Before joining the Guggenheim, Therrien worked and taught in various capacities at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), and founded Therrien-Barley with fellow faculty member Chris Barley.

Career from 2005[]

Therrien worked at various architecture firms in the United States and Europe between 2005 and 2008, including O.A.L., IJP Architects, and SYSTEM Architects. In 2011, he co-founded Therrien-Barley with Chris Barley, and became Chief Architect, Cloud Communications at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. In 2013 and 2014, respectively, he served as a member of the Architizer Editorial Board and editor of the Applied Research Practices in Architecture Journal. Throughout this period, Therrien continued curating shows in Rotterdam, Montreal, and Athens, as well as in New York at MoMA PS1.^[1] Therrien has been invited to speak at prominent events across the world, appearing at the Moscow Strelka Institute, Bucharest's We Are Museums conference, Berlin's Art & Digital Culture Conference, and New York's Armory Art Fair, among others.

At Columbia University, Therrien has taught courses on Silicon Valley, blockchain, post-rationality, conspiracy theories, deep history, and magic. He was a founding board member of the architecture school's alumni association, and is currently a student mentor.^[2] Therrien also spearheaded Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Columbia GSAPP and Audi of America. The program centered around developing and testing "new paradigms in the relationship between mobility and design."^[3]

Guggenheim[]

Therrien was appointed as the first curator of architecture and digital initiatives in 2014. His mixed background in academia, architecture, and computer science was cited by museum director Richard Armstrong as a major draw in the appointment.^[4] In 2015, Therrien's major projects included "Guggenheim Helsinki Now,", the Guggenheim-led design competition for the Guggenheim's new Helsinki location. Almost two thousand entires were submitted to Stage One of the competition, which were winnowed down by a team of eleven jurors. Concerns over cost and financial risk eventually led the Helsinki city council to reject the plan. Also in 2015, Therrien curated the Guggenheim's first online exhibition, "Åzone Futures Market," in partnership with Are.na. The site allowed visitors to the site to invest cåin, a digital currency, towards different technology-driven visions of the future.

Therrien began work in this period with architect Rem Koolhaas and his firm OMA on the exhibition "Countryside: Future of the World." The exhibition was announced November 29, 2017, and will take place in the spiral rotunda of the Guggenheim's New York location in fall 2019. The exhibition is to some extent a response to the twin political upsets of Brexit and the U.S. 2016 presidential election.^[5]

Notes[]