Chip Lord

Born in 1944, Lord graduated from Tulane University, New Orleans where he received his M.Arch. at The Tulane University School of Architecture in 1968. Lord entered college five years earlier, choosing New Orleans's Tulane because he wanted to major in architecture, the result of a boyhood passion for exploring houses under construction. Lord decided not to go the traditional route after graduation by joining an architecture firm for four years before being able to start his own firm. Doug Michels, who graduated from Yale University in 1967, met Lord while on a college lecture tour during the previous year. Together, they founded the alternative architecture practice Ant Farm, which was later expanded to include Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier.

Lord attributes his education in architecture as a strong foundation for his art making. The training in developing ideas, planning, placing them into action are all skills Lord places into his work, a way of organized thinking. Their inspiration drew upon specifically the events of the year 1968 and focused on the function of the generation and counter culture as a way to reinvent the society created by the generation before them.