Futures of the Architectural Exhibition

Book excerpt: This book records a critical discussion of individual approaches to the representation of space in a museum through a series of conversations. Architecture and design exhibitions have long been important public sites of broadcasting, experimentation, position-taking, and the interrogation of fundamental aspects of the designed environment. Just as individual exhibitions have constituted key benchmarks within the disciplinary history of architecture, the representation and display of space through exhibitions has operated historically as a crucial medium for shaping and embodying broader cultural attitudes toward the design of the built world. In recent years, the specific formats and challenges of exhibiting architecture and design, both built and speculative, have often been used as critical devices for identifying, communicating, and convening the public around shared matters of concern. These have increasingly included urgent questions of equity and justice, labor, gender, race, class, community, and lifestyle in relation to spatial issues of density, economy, policy, infrastructure, climate, and sustainability. Futures of the Architectural Exhibition records a discussion of critical approaches to the representation of architecture through conversations with seven contemporary curators working inside and outside of the museum. Mario Ballesteros (Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, Mexico City), Giovanna Borasi (Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal), Ann Lui (Future Firm, Chicago), Ana Miljački (Critical Broadcasting Lab, MIT), Zoë Ryan (ICA, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia), Martino Stierli (Museum of Modern Art, New York), and Shirley Surya (M+, Hong Kong) speculate on the specific challenges and potentials of exhibiting space.