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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 3, 2005

Contact: Marisa Ramirez
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EXHIBIT SHOWS VISIONARY UH ARCHITECT ‘BEYOND THE ANT FARM’
Michels’ Life and Career Display the Designer and Futurist

HOUSTON, Jan. 3, 2005—A visionary. An original. But, most of all, a gifted architect and designer. The life and career of Doug Michels will be on display during “Doug Michels: Beyond The Ant Farm,” Jan. 14 – March 6 at the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture. The exhibit tells the story of Michels’ unconventional life and career through photographs, sketches and drawings. “Doug Michels: Beyond The Ant Farm” will be the first time many of the items have been shown in public.

Michels, a former UH adjunct professor known for his non-traditional designs, is best remembered for his work with Ant Farm, an art collective he co-founded that created such works as the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, and Media Burn in San Francisco. But the scope of his life’s work includes space-age designs and futuristic environments.

“Doug was hard to categorize,” said Stephen James, gallery curator for the College of Architecture. “He was trained as an architect, but worked in all forms of visual media. He made his mark with Ant Farm, but that is only part of the story.”

One project on exhibit is the Allen Teleport. The futuristic media room was originally designed and constructed for the Houston home of E. Rudge and Nancy Allen in 1979. The design of the blue and silver space-age lounge pre-dates the World Wide Web by 10 years, but featured the first Apple personal computer to be purchased in Houston. Its forward thinking design also included a device to project computer images onto a large screen. After the death of Rudge Allen, the room was relocated in 1998 to the UH College of Architecture and renamed the E. Rudge Allen Media Center. It currently serves as a media center and conference room for the students and faculty. The room will be opened for limited showings.

Michels’ passion for dolphins is also illustrated in his designs and commentaries on Bluestar, a space station for humans and dolphins, and the Dolphin Embassy, an Australian research project to communicate with dolphins.

“Ant Farm was based in San Francisco, but the group had a long association with Houston,” said James. “Michels in particular spent a considerable amount of time here, serving on the faculty of the UH College of Architecture in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. The exhibition is a chance for the college to honor his memory and share his insightful, but irreverent approach to design.”

Michels died in the summer of 2003 in a rock-climbing accident in Australia. He had been serving as a consultant for an educational film about whales and fell as he climbed to an observation point. The College of Architecture acquired the items in the exhibit’s collection from Michels’ family after his death.

“Doug Michels: Beyond The Ant Farm” is presented in conjunction with “Ant Farm: 1968 – 1978,” an exhibition celebrating a decade of visionary architecture and design by one of the most innovative artists’ collaboratives to emerge in the United States, on view at Blaffer Gallery, The Art Museum of the University of Houston, from Jan. 15 – March 5.

For more information on the UH Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, please visit www.arch.uh.edu

For more information on the Blaffer Gallery, The Art Museum of the University of Houston, please visit www.blaffergallery.org

About the University of Houston

The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service with more than 35,000 students.

For more information about UH visit the university’s ‘Newsroom’ at www.uh.edu/admin/media/newsroom.