In a famous essay about the relationship between feminism and architecture, Mary McLeod noted how Foucault, in articulating the concept of heterotopia ‘seems to have expressed an unconscious disdain for aspects of everyday life such as the home, the public park and the department store, which were instead provinces in which women found not only oppression, but also a degree of comfort, security, autonomy and even freedom.’ The backdrop for this exhibition is a work by the English architect naturalized Swedish Ralph Erskine, called Shopping, which opened in September 1955 in Luleå, a town on the edge of the Arctic Circle where most of the population of Norrbotten is concentrated. With its hard-to-reach location, this building received little attention from architectural critics, who were only interested in it as something it was not: the first shopping mall in history. In spite of its name, the building is in fact rather like a passage, a shopping mall with no underground parking and no car access, located in the very center of the city. The importance of the building did not escape to Mai Zetterling - the first female director to win an award for directing at the Venice Film Festival after the war with the short film War Game (1962) - who set the decisive sequences of Flickorna (The Girls, 1968), a milestone in the promotion of a culture of equality and gender diversity (from which the title line of the exhibition is taken). By juxtaposing the projection of this film transposition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata with the transfigurations of promotional and documentary images conserved in the archives that in various ways give an account of the commercial gallery's past, the exhibition intends to make explicit the contestation to the stereotyped image of the “Swedish woman” that asserted itself on the international scene, and more specifically in Italian cinema, from the end of the 1950s onwards. In order to gain a physical and bodily awareness of how much Shopping's architecture has been and still continues to be a field of confrontation and redefinition of gender identity, those who visit the exhibition will have the concrete possibility of tracing its complex inner atrium and directly comparing it with figurines, caricatures (macchietta)
and human representations of the time, giving life to the performance of a real ‘animated view’.

Challenge
History whispers through the weathered stones of monuments, each one a testament to a bygone era. But what if these grand structures, once bustling centers of power or worship, could find a new purpose in the modern world? The "Reimagining History: AI Competition" challenges you to do just that. Participants are invited to embark on a journey of creative exploration, selecting a historical monument – a majestic castle, a sprawling palace, or a serene temple – and envisioning a new, relevant use for it in the 21st century. The task lies not just in finding a function, but in seamlessly integrating it with the existing architectural style and historical significance of the monument. Can you breathe new life into these architectural giants, ensuring they not only stand as testaments to the past but also thrive as vibrant spaces in our present? Utilize the power of AI rendering to showcase your vision, and together, let's reimagine the future of historical preservation.

Lee Kun-hee Museum (tentative name) International Design Competition

Join us for a summer workshop on earth building! We will construct a rammed earth pavilion and explore ways to use natural materials in architecture. Special attention will be given to hemp as a building material. No prior knowledge is required! The workshop will take place at the Center for Earth Building in Dobrava pri Škocjanu 23.

Bamboo U is an education enterprise that has grown out of the center of the world’s bamboo-building movement in Bali, Indonesia. Together with the renowned design firm IBUKU and just two minutes from the all-bamboo campus at Green School Bali, we have been pioneering bamboo architecture for over 10 years. We share our extensive knowledge on bamboo design and sustainable architecture through immersive courses.

Our upcoming in-person course will give participants the unique opportunity to work on the construction of a playground, the winning project from our recent design competition. Join us to meet the pioneers, visionaries, designers, and builders who have transformed bamboo into the most desired natural material.

‘Invisible’ introduces the works of Axi:Ome—a design practice led by Heather Woofter and Sung Ho Kim formerly in St. Louis and now in Cleveland—through a collection of essays and projects that map the firm's trajectory across seven years, from 2015 to 2023. The book covers 24 built, unbuilt, and conceptual projects located in different cultures and landscapes around the world that engage with multiple programs and scales. Essays by Nader Tehrani, Eric Mumford, Alan Balfour, Jennifer Yoos, Jessie Reiser and Nanako Umemoto with Julian Harake, and Michelle L. Hauk each contribute insight into Axi:Ome’s critical frameworks and help define a discourse of complexities in contemporary practice arising from academia. The book documents the invisible ethos that underlies the construction of architectural projects in an intricate world, challenging practitioners to rethink and reexamine how they position their own work in the architectural spectrum. ‘Invisible’ maps and chronicles an architectural practice as it engages with the pedagogical visions of the profession.

We're launching a student floorplan competition in rayon.design!

Discover Trailblazing Thinkers at the Forecast Forum

Margolese National Design for Living award winner Jane Wolff is delivering a special public lecture at Melbourne School of Design on her work framing public conversations about how to manage complex and contested landscapes that are subject to change.

"Creating Inclusive Playgrounds for Every Child": Design a universally accessible playground that caters to children with all types of disabilities. The challenge is to create not just a play area but a vibrant space that ensures safety, inclusivity, and endless fun for children with diverse needs.

Capital city Podgorica announces Competition for the Conceptual Architectural Design of the Adaptive Reuse of the 'NA-MA' Department Store in Podgorica.

The Sun, ‘mother’ star of the solar system around which various bodies, including the Earth, revolve, whose fusion core produces energy and releases electromagnetic radiation, a flow of particles and neutrinos. In 2024, a surge of this radiation caused a storm capable of disrupting electrical grid transmissions on Earth.

Join us for a pressing conversation about the ongoing efforts to safeguard Ukraine’s cultural heritage

Videos

CITY’SCAPE begins, a two-day event dedicated to LANDSCAPE DESIGN that will showcase the most current themes at the Triennale di Milano. Over 40 speakers from 10 countries, including Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Turkey, Denmark, China, Finland, and Italy, will participate in the eighth edition of the International Symposium and award "CITY’SCAPE - Landscape design as a strategy in climate change for urban and social resilience," scheduled for July 11th and 12th in the prestigious setting of the Salone d’Onore of the Triennale di Milano.