Luonnos Bagdadin taidemuseosta Irakiin (1957–58). Originaalipiirustus. Image Courtesy of Alvar Aalto Foundation
The Alvar Aalto Museum is showcasing one last exhibition before it undergoes a complete renovation, highlighting the architect’s unbuilt museum designs. While Aalto designed a total of 15 museum buildings, only three made it from concepts to the actual built structures. The exhibition entitled “The Dream of a Museum” includes both detailed and more sketch-like plans, along with competition entries.
Sigmund Freud, the author of “The Interpretation of Dreams” and the founder of Psychoanalysis, once argued that, “A strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds a wish which finds its fulfillment in the creative work.”
In the second part of his interview with Archdaily, Hashim Sarkis reflects on the future of architecture as he tackles the timeless question of the 2021 Venice Biennale. The curator of the Biennale, which proposes the question of “How Will We Live Together?”, discusses the role of the profession in the midst of all these new paradigms, stating that “Architects do change the world […] by creating […] wish images for what the world could be”.
In this feature, the curator of the anticipated biennale and dean of MIT School of Architecture and Planning presents his views on the evolution of Architecture, and the new directions the academic world should take, to reflect “the complexity of the urban problems of today”. Sarkis also brings up Beirut, discussing reconstruction approaches, civil society, and the exasperating notion of resilience.
Etherea, the installation conceived by Edoardo Tresoldi for the Coachella festival in 2018, has landed in Rome for "Back to Nature”, an exhibition project curated by Costantino d’Orazio. The large transparent mesh sculpture will dialogue with the trees of the Parco dei Daini, in Villa Borghese, until December 13, 2020.
Flores Residence, Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, USA 1979. Image Courtesy of Thom Mayne
Running from 11 September till 15 November 2020, "Thom Mayne: Sculptural Drawings" is the latest architectural exhibition at Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin. Curated by Kristin Feireiss, together with Esenija Bannan, the project questions the nature of architectural drawing and how it influenced the work of Thom Mayne, founder of Morphosis. The exhibition features Mayne’s works dating from 1979 through 2020 and leads visitors from “traditional” drawings and new experimentations with techniques, through to 3D paintings.
Cartography of Barcelona redrawn by air pollution. Image Courtesy of 300.000 Km/s
Catalonia in Venice - air/aria/aire, part of the Collateral Event of the Biennale Architettura 2021, is an exhibition curated by architect Olga Subirós, commissioned by the Institut Ramon Llull, with the participation of 300.000 Km/s, an urbanism studio in macro data-based strategic planning. Reflecting on the central theme of the Biennale “How will we live together?” the project investigates the role of architecture and urbanism within the context of the climate emergency and the public health crisis.
HOMO URBANUS Rabatius . Image Courtesy of Bêka & Lemoine
As the world is moving into a post-pandemic time, museums are finally resuming their work under strict social distancing and health measures. Arc en rêve d’Architecture in Bordeaux, France has reopened its main gallery with an exhibition by Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine, entitled Homo Urbanus. Shown for the first time in its complete version, the exposition offers a vibrant tribute to public spaces.
Wrightwood 659, a private institution located in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, will host the first U.S. Exhibition of Indian architect, urbanist, and 2018 Pritzker Prize winner Balkrishna Doshi. Running from September 9 till December 12, 2020, the retrospective entitled Balkrishna Doshi: Architecture for the People, is the first display devoted to the works of the laureate, outside of Asia.
MAAT, the museum of art, architecture, and technology in Lisbon, Portugal has officially reopened its doors on June 10, unveiling to the public the new projects originally scheduled to launch before the Covid-19 lockdown, such as Beeline, an architecture intervention by SO – IL. Transforming the museum into a landscape of encounters and conversations, this exhibition also generates a temporary second entrance to the gallery space.
WORKac in collaboration with Musea Brugge and Cultuurcentrum Brugge has created an exhibition entitled Water Works. Set to run initially from March 7th to June 7th, 2020 at the historic Poortersloge in Bruges, Belgium, the exhibition has been temporarily closed to the public due to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic. However, the New York-based architectural practice has produced a brief video highlighting its six themed rooms and the eighteen projects on display.
Entering the Guggenheim Museum, visitors find themselves surrounded by a feast of vivid colors and mismatched fonts. Passing the gigantic green tractor at the entrance, they move across the ground floor, littered with stickers, like a lunchbox, or a lid of a laptop. A thick pillar that pierces the internal atrium has become a garish advertising column. A bale of hay, a drone, and some other object (impossible to identify) levitate high overhead. A cardboard cutout of Joseph Stalin on robot wheels moves down the ramp, scaring off visitors. Big reflective letters say: “Countryside, The Future”.
Architect Rem Koolhaas, the founder of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and Samir Bantal, director of OMA’s internal think-tank AMO, created this utterly confusing environment to exhibit years of research on the space beyond the boundaries of the 21st-century city.
Architect and educator Astra Zarina wasn’t just the teacher of Tom Kundig, Ed Weinstein, and Steven Holl (who designed ‘T’ Space); she was also an advocator for public spaces, cohesive urbanity, and the communities that these attributes fostered. ‘T’ Space’s newest exhibit Rome and the Teacher, Astra Zarina celebrates Zarina’s life and teachings in the context of recognizing overlooked pedagogical figures, particularly women. A recent article by Metropolis Magazine describes this exhibit in detail and with it, Zarina’s own life story.
https://www.archdaily.com/922753/t-spaces-new-exhibit-celebrates-the-overlooked-history-of-an-influential-female-architect-and-educatorLilly Cao
I Am Interested in Seeing the Future is an architectural exhibition, that, contrary to what you might expect, includes no models and no drawings. Instead, as soon as visitors arrive, they find themselves surrounded by text. The wall facing the entrance is covered by an installation of single words on posters, interview transcripts on colored paper, and mirrors that reflect the sentences on flimsy scrolls arcing down from the ceiling.
Reiulf Ramstad Architects will inaugurate a new exhibition series “In the World of an Architect” at The Utzon Center, focusing on “architecture and design created in the tension field between local and global.” The exhibition will consist of a number of spatial installations spread across five rooms, setting out the concept of “Nordic” and appreciating the importance of the architects’ standpoint.
Rather than cancel the importance of a regionally-based building tradition in a globalized profession, the exhibition invites a more diverse, nuanced understanding of what it means to be a Nordic architect in a globalized era.
The scheme was chosen from 132 entries to the competition run by Shiva Ltd and the Architecture Foundation, which asked participants to engage with “the heritage of the Regent’s Canal in innovative ways.”
Snarkitecture’s “Fun House” has opened at the National Building Museum in Washington DC, an interactive exhibition forming part of the museum’s Summer Block Party series of temporary structures created inside its historic Great Hall.