Shape Tomorrow, a new exhibition at AEDES Architecture Forum in Berlin, is a reaction to both staid, self-serious architecture shows and to the staid, self-serious architecture profession. Taking the form of a miniature city, it turns buildings into named characters, encourages visitors to populate structures with miniature people, and leaves space for them to fill the room with their ideas and criticism.

The exhibition, on view through January 13, is the brainchild of German architect Matthias Hollwich, founder of New York-based HWKN—a burgeoning firm known for both its research and its sense of whimsy. The show centers on nine, 16-foot-tall white plaster towers whose glowing bases take on the forms of some of the firm’s playful, kinetic projects from around the world. These include 25 Kent, a fractured office building in Williamsburg, and Die Macherei, a jutting and terraced mixed-use business district in Munich.

The following excerpt from Sam Lubell's Mid-Century Modern Architecture Travel Guide: East Coast USA—with excellent photos by Darren Bradley—provides an introduction to the revelatory and inspiring charm of the East Coast's Mid-Century Modern masterpieces. The book includes over 250 unique projects and serves as record of one of the USA’s most important architectural movements.

Few experiences are as wedged into our psyches as the Great American Road Trip—a rite of passage chronicled by luminaries from Alexis de Tocqueville to Jack Kerouac. The Great American Mid-Century Modern Architecture Road Trip? Not famous. But that’s one of the many reasons it’s so appealing. Discovery, in this global, digital age, when few corners are mysterious, has become a rare commodity. And discovery on the East Coast of America—in the context of one of the finest collections of Modern design in the world—is that much sweeter.