The exhibition AFRICA is the third and last in the series architecture, culture and identity. It focuses on the area called sub-Saharan Africa – the part of Africa south of the Sahara Desert. Louisiana’s wish to mount this exhibition has its origin in a very simple observation: despite the fact that Africa is the world’s second-largest continent, surprisingly little contemporary culture from there comes our way.
The 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism Architecture (UABB) has launched an open call for exhibitors. Co-organized by Shenzhen and Hong Kong, UABB is the only biennial exhibition in the world that is based exclusively on the themes of urbanism and urbanization. This year's edition, which will run from December 2015 to February 2016, will be based around the themes "Re-Living the City" and "Visions 2050 - Lifestyle & The City." All those who are interested in participating as an exhibitor should submit their proposals to the organizers of the Shenzhen curatorial team (here) and Hong Kong curatorial team (here) before June 30, 2015. See our past coverage on the 2013 UABB to learn more about the event.
Exhibitions, much like publications and films, are one of the key contemporary methods for the communication of architectural concepts and ideas. They allow the practice, curator or educative body to edit and present information and visuals in a way which narrates a story, provokes new ideas, or feeds into a wider discourse. For many, exhibitions are an invaluable source of inspiration and an engaging way of gaining new, or reaffirming old, knowledge and design precedents. Intimately linked to the space or place in which they are displayed, the best exhibitions also remind us that the practice of architecture is both a profession and a discipline; a valuable way of understanding the built, and unbuilt, world we live in.
If you're traveling to, living or studying in Europe this summer then dive into our compilation of what we consider to be some of the most informative and exciting exhibitions on show in between June and October 2015. If you visit them, or any other exhibitions that you enjoy, share a photograph on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #archdailyexhibitions.
Check out our favourite exhibitions on architecture, urbanism and design, from Jyväskylä to Milano, after the break.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh is considered to be one of the most influential artists and architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and earlier this year his work was displayed in an exhibition at the Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA), following a five-year research project by the University of Glasgow. Among the exhibition of over 60 original drawings, watercolors and perspectives spanning the entirety of his career, highlights included models of his unbuilt work and original designs for the Glasgow School of Art. Watch the short documentary above on the five-year research process by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), who funded the University of Glasgow's work.
Completed images of OMA's design for the 2015 Venice Art Biennale's Chinese Pavilion have been released. Juxtaposing artworks "in a field of projections and stages," the exhibition is designed to be an "immersive environment" that brings together work by Tan Dun, Liu Jiakun, Lu Yang, Wu Wenguang / Caochangdi Work Station and Wen Hui / Living Dance Studio under the theme "Other Future."
For the next year, visitors at New York's Brooklyn Bridge Park will have the chance to interact with "Please Touch the Art", an exhibition of works by Danish artist Jeppe Hein. Playful, inventive, and immediately striking, Hein's work engages audiences as "active participants," inviting spontaneity and user interaction. Curated by Nicholas Baume, the exhibition contains three bodies of work by Hein: the soaring water jets of Appearing Rooms, the sixteen bright red benches of Modified Social Benches, and the reflective vertical planks of Mirror Labyrinth NY.
The exhibition is a project of New York City's Public Art Fund, a non-profit organization responsible for numerous free exhibitions offering "powerful experiences with art and the urban environment".
Learn more about the Mirror Labyrinth NY installation and view selected images after the break.
Starting June 10, the RIBA will present The Brutalist Playground - an exhibition that is part sculpture, part architectural installation, which invites people of all ages to come and play, the Brutalist way. Occupying the entire Architecture Gallery, the immersive landscape is a new commission by Turner Prize nominated design and architecture collective Assemble and artist Simon Terrill. It explores the abstract concrete playgrounds that were designed as part of Brutalist housing estates in the mid-twentieth century, but which no longer exist. They became playgrounds unsuitable for play.
On display until July 19th, MoMA's exhibition "Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980" is an attempt to bring the architecture of this global region, and this time period, to a greater audience after decades of neglect by the architectural establishment. Curated by Barry Bergdoll, the exhibition effectively follows on from MoMA's last engagement with the topic of Latin American architecture, way back in 1955 with Henry-Russell Hitchcock's exhibition "Latin American Architecture Since 1945." In an intriguing interview, Bergdoll sits down with Metropolis Magazine to talk about why he is revisiting the topic after so many years (or, indeed, why MoMA took so long to do so), and explains his ambitions to elevate the featured works and to frame Latin America itself as "not simply as a place where the pupils of Le Corbusier went to build, but a place of origins of ideas." Read the full interview here.
From April 25 through July 25, 2015, the Graham Foundation will host an exhibition at its Madlener House showcasing the vision of Italian-Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi. Known for her emphasis on social modernism and expressive use of materials, Lina Bo Bardi: Together explores her legacy through her collected works, as well as that of other artists paying homage to the architect and striving to generate new conversations about her designs. Curated by Noemi Blager, the exhibition features photographs, films, and artistic objects reflecting Bo Bardi's diverse work and immersion in Brazilian culture.
From April 10, the Frac Centre will host "Relief(s)— Designing the Horizon", a series of exhibitions, workshops, and meetings exploring the place of the relief in the timeline of modern art. Over five months the work of Yasuaki Onishi, Gérard Singer, and Aurélie Pétrel will be on display alongside a host of supplementary cultural and educational programs. Hoping to "[shed] new light on the way in which contemporary art can renew our reading of the landscape and, more broadly the environment", the exhibition will run until September 19. Learn more about the artists involved and view selected works after the break.
Look & Listen, a new sound responsive exhibition at the recently opened Sto Werkstatt gallery in London, explores "the often unnoticed, yet vital role acoustics play in our experience of place." Designed by The Klassnik Corporation, the exhibition offers a variety of "sonic experiences" which encourage the visitor to focus on the audible aspects of architecture. It creates a unique set of environments built using Sto’s range of acoustic systems, "utilising the perfect balance of design flexibility and technical leadership the acoustic materials offer." The installation also demonstrates the materials‘ capabilities in reducing reverberation and promoting clearer sound.
Around the globe, the post-war years were a period of optimism and extreme experimentation. On both sides of the cold war's ideological divide, this optimism found its greatest expression, architecturally speaking, in modernism - but of course, the particular circumstances of each city offered a unique spin on the modernist project. According to the curators of "Superstructure," an exhibition presented at Kiev's Visual Culture Research Center from January 28th to February 28th, the utopian architectural works of Kiev represented "an attempt to transform the city into the environment for materialization of artistic thinking – in contrast to the strict unification of city space by typical construction and residential blocks." Architects such as Edward Bilsky and Florian Yuriyev, often working in collaboration with artists such as Ada Rybachuk and Volodymyr Melnychenko attempted to create projects that were a complete synthesis of architecture and art - an approach to design that often didn't sit well with the Ukrainian authorities of the time.
Featuring research by Alex Bykov, Oleksandr Burlaka and Oleksiy Radynski, "Superstructure" examined the projects which were typical of this particular cultural moment in Kiev. After the break, we present this research, and a selection of images from the exhibition.
From April 18 until August 24, 2015, the Hombroich Foundation will showcase the work of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Eduardo Souto de Moura. Spanning from his early career in 1980 to the present, the exhibition will explore de Moura’s influential style through models, plans, sketches and photographs. Celebrating such dynamic works as the reconstruction of the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria do Bouro in Amares and the the football stadium Estádio Municipal de Braga, highlighted projects will tell the lifelong story of de Moura’s designs.
Marking the fiftieth anniversary of Le Corbusier’s death, Galerie Eric Mouchet is collaborating with Galerie Zlotowski to showcase Le Corbusier: Panorama of a Lifetime’s Work in Paris. The exhibition, opening April 23 and on view through July 25, will provide a comprehensive overview of paintings, drawings and engravings of the legendary Le Corbusier.
“Le Corbusier, who was never without a sketchbook in his pocket, devoted half of every day over a 45 year period to writing, painting and drawing - what he called his ‘Atelier de la recherché patiente,’” says the galleries. “His visual arts output was both highly original and prolific, stretching from 1917 to 1965. Up to the Second World War, this work was largely for his own personal research. Later, however, it helped drive the design and promotion of the Modulor, a ‘harmonious’ scale of proportions he devised in 1946.”
Take a look inside Le Corbusier’s mind and preview five of the prolific paintings that will be exhibited, after the break.
In 1955 the Museum of Modern Art staged Latin American Architecture since 1945, a landmark survey of modern architecture in Latin America. On the 60th anniversary of that important show, the Museum returns to the region to offer a complex overview of the positions, debates, and architectural creativity from Mexico and Cuba to the Southern Cone between 1955 and the early 1980s.
More about Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955-1980, opening at MoMA on March 29th, after the break.
Now on view at London’s Architectural Association, Jan Kaplický Drawings presents work by the Czech architect Jan Kaplický (1937-2009) – a visionary designer with a passion for drawing as a means of discovering, describing and constructing. Through drawing he presented beguiling architectural imagery of the highest order.
The earliest projects date from the early 1970s when, for Kaplický, drawing was essentially a speculative pursuit. Whilst his days were spent working for other architects, during evenings and weekends he designed and drew at home. His architecture at this time was the plan and the finely detailed cross-section. Never satisfied, he constantly developed and honed his graphic language, perfecting the technique of the cutaway isometric which became his trademark.
A preview of Kaplický’s drawings, after the break.
The Netherlands Builds in Brick is one of the latest exhibitions at Het Nieuwe Instituut (formerly the NAi) in Rotterdam. It seeks to modify the "assumed triumph of Modernism" in the interwar period, drawing upon two photographic collections from the Institute's extensive archives. The exhibition has been curated to highlight that brick remained the favoured construction material throughout the advocacy of the Modernist movement, even for experimental construction.
From March 13, Berlin's Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing will showcase the work of acclaimed Russian artist and architect Alexander Brodsky in the eponymous exhibition "Alexander Brodsky. Works."
Curated by Daria Paramonova, architect and co-curator of the Russian Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Biennale, the exhibition will feature a collection of Brodsky's new and old work and run until June 5.
Learn more about the exhibition and view selected works on display after the break.
_Arch_Press_Archive_RIBA_Library_Photographs_Collection.jpg?1432159232 "Park Hill Estate, Sheffield - 1962. Image © Arch Press Archive RIBA Library Photographs Collection")
_John_Maltby__RIBA_Library_Photographs_Collection_(1).jpg?1432159169 "Churchill Gardens - 1956. Image © John Maltby RIBA Library Photographs Collection")
