描述

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 publics 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. They speculate on the specific challenges and potentials of exhibiting space.

Reto Geiser is a designer and scholar working at the interface of architecture, pedagogy, and media. He is associate professor and director of undergraduate studies at Rice University’s School of Architecture.

Michael Kubo is an architect, author, and assistant professor and program coordinator for architectural history and theory at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design, University of Houston.