Open Concepts - Jimenez Lai

Monster Stories of Architecture
On November 6, Open Concepts returns for our final lecture of the year with Jimenez Lai. Join us for an imaginative exploration of architecture through the lens of monster stories. Architect and storyteller Jimenez Lai, principal of Bureau Spectacular in Los Angeles, California, will introduce the concept of architecture embodied as monsters—structures that challenge norms, push boundaries, and defy conventional expectations.

The lecture will navigate between a selection of Bureau Spectacular's built projects and short graphic novels that develop the architectural monsters, revealing the deeper, whimsical characters of Lai's designs and showing how they evolve and interact with the world around them. Through these stories, we will also dive into a collection of unbuilt projects, exploring what architecture could look like when liberated from the constraints of the real world, venturing into the realm of fiction and possibility.

Bureau Spectacular is known for imagining fantastical worlds and crafting beautiful, absurd works that intertwine design, theory, representation and history. Lai constructs narratives that question our assumptions about space and structure, turning the built environment into a stage for playful, critical, and speculative tales. This lecture will be an invitation to think about architecture not just as a physical form, but as a narrative agent—a "monster" with its own story to tell, growing through time and space in unexpected ways. Expect an evening filled with delightful absurdities, conceptual adventures, and an exploration of how design can embody character, emotion, and narrative.
About Open Concepts Design Collective

Open Concepts is a cultural initiative that works to support and expand design thinking in Calgary. We exist to take closed, settled, established concepts and open them for reinterpretation.

We bring a diverse audience of Calgarians together to contemplate complex architectural ideas. We invite everyone who shares a passion for design to join us to learn, discuss, and act on the issues facing our built environment.

By making connections to exciting, innovative design practitioners outside of Calgary, we aim to enhance our city’s and its citizens’ understanding of the greater design world and our own role within it.

The Open Concepts lecture series is presented by XYC Design in partnership with Carraig Ridge and The Canadian Museum of Making.

Host or Publisher Open Concepts