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Norman Foster previews his Centre Pompidou retrospective for the New York Times

2023-05-11T11:47:00-04:00

I’ve responded to an invitation. Nobody could knock on the door of the Pompidou Center and say, “Hey, I had this idea.” This wasn’t my idea. I’m responding to an invitation, and I’m honored on behalf of so many people to accept it. I’m excited about the future. I think the future is more interesting than the past. I leave the past to other people.

The 1999 Pritzker Prize winner also delved into topics as far ranging as his yearslong dispute with environmental activists, representation of women in architecture, engagements in Saudi Arabia, NEOM, so-called "starchitects," and the world to come. The exhibition features some 130 major projects, covering areas like his love for cars, early collaboration with Buckminster Fuller, and more, all honed in on themes of "sustainability and anticipating the future."

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Curator Frédéric Migayrou breaks down Foster’s six-decade output into seven thematic sections: Nature and Urbanity; Skin and Bones; Vertical City; History and Tradition; Planning and Places; Networks and Mobility; and Future.

The exhibition, titled Norman Foster, is open now and will remain on view until August 7th.

The first posthumous Virgil Abloh retrospective will showcase at the Brooklyn Museum this summer

2022-02-10T12:57:00-05:00

This summer, the Brooklyn Museum will stage a version of the first institutional survey dedicated to the late fashion designer and creative visionary Virgil Abloh. The show, titled “Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech,” will build on an earlier exhibition of the same name that originated at the MCA Chicago in 2019, and then traveled to ICA Boston, the High Museum in Atlanta, and Qatar Museums.

The Brooklyn Museum’s showcase of the exhibit is organized by writer and curator Antwaun Sargent and will be Abloh’s first posthumous retrospective since his passing at the age of 41 in November.

Originally a mid-career survey, “Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech,” designed by AMO director Samir Bantal, explores two decades of Abloh’s prolific career that saw the creative merge the gaps between seemingly disparate realms, including streetwear, high fashion, architecture, and music.

Previously on Archinect: AMO's exhibition for Virgil Abloh opens in Chicago

The exhibition will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum from July 1, 2022, through January 29, 2023.

First Kenzo Tange retrospective in Tokyo to be showcased at the National Archives of Modern Architecture

2021-07-14T19:58:00-04:00

The first major exhibition in Tokyo dedicated to Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kenzo Tange is opening later this month. Renowned for combining traditional Japanese and modernist forms in his designs, the exhibition features a retrospective of the first half of the influential architect’s career.

The exhibition titled, TANGE KENZO 1938-1970: From Pre-war period to Olympic Games and World Expo, is presented by the National Archives of Modern Architecture (NAMA), Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, in cooperation with Tange Associates, Uchida Michiko, Tokyo Metropolitan Parks Association, Japan Arts Council, World Monuments Fund (WMF), American Express, DOCOMOMO Japan, and The Museum of Art, Kochi.

As Tokyo hosts the 2021 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the exhibition commemorates Tange’s leading role in realizing the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and the Osaka World Expo in 1970.

Previously on Archinect: Tokyo's 1964 Olympics architecture remembered

The showcase explores the first half of T...

The fantastic, cardboard city models of Bodys Isek Kingelez on display in MoMA's first retrospective of the Congolese artist

2018-05-01T14:26:00-04:00

In its first-ever solo show of a Black African artist, New York's Museum of Modern Art will put the work of visionary Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez on full display. On view from May 26, 2018 through January 1, 2019, City Dreams will span the sculptor's three-decade career from his early single-building sculptures, to his spectacular sprawling cities and futuristic late works.

Bodys Isek Kingelez (Congolese, 1948-2015). Paris Nouvel. 1989. Paper, paperboard, and other various materials, 33 7/16 × 24 × 27 9/16″ (85 × 61 × 70 cm). Long-term loan from the Centre national des arts plastiques, France to the Château d’Oiron, France, FNAC 981003. © Cnap (France) / droits résérves; photograph by Frédéric Pignoux, Studio Lud

The self-trained artist, who passed in 2015, was known for his "extreme maquettes" in which he transformed paper, commercial packaging, and other everyday materials into dazzling, intricate sculptures. From fanciful models of civic buildings and public monuments, t...

At age 90, Phyllis Lambert looks back on her career in CCA exhibition

2017-02-01T18:30:00-05:00

Phyllis Lambert is 90 years strong, and the impact she has made in architecture in the last six decades still resonates to this day. While her influence in architecture is well known, what is Lambert's perspective on her own career? In celebration of her 90th birthday that was on January 24, the CCA in Montreal is currently exhibiting “Phyllis Lambert: 75 Years at Work”.

Curated by the CCA Founding Director Emeritus herself, the exhibition highlights milestones like the early days in her career, her iconic role as Director of Planning of the Seagram Building, to her conservation and restoration projects in her native Montreal and abroad.

Find out more on Bustler.

Zaha Hadid transforms Zurich gallery in homage to artist Kurt Schwitters

2016-06-17T14:03:00-04:00

Upon first glance, the “Kurt Schwitters: Merz” exhibition is an enticing haven of artistic talent. The retrospective opened earlier this week at the Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich. An exhibition involving Zaha Hadid is sure to be a visual treat, whether it's her work that is on display or if she designed an exhibition's setup. Hadid's design for this particular exhibition...is the late architect's homage to Kurt Schwitters' famous Merzbau.

See more photos of the exhibition on Bustler.

Zaha Hadid's repertoire is a stunning display in Venice's Palazzo Franchetti

2016-05-27T21:06:00-04:00

The opulence of Venice's 16th-century Palazzo Franchetti is as memorable as the designs of a particular Zaha Hadid. A can't-be-missed retrospective honoring the late architect's four-decade career opened to the public today, just in time for the hoards of visitors venturing out to the nearby 2016 Venice Biennale. Organized by the Fondazione Berengo cultural institution, this Zaha Hadid retrospective is an abridged showcase of Hadid's pioneering works that made her a designer and artist who was always ahead of her time.

The exhibition features a range of Hadid's completed, under-construction, in progress, and unbuilt projects — from her early paintings and drawings to models of ZHA's buildings that are due for completion later this year.

A separate room will display three projects that are meant to symbolize milestones in Hadid's career: the Weil am Rhein-based Vitra Fire Station (completed 1993), ZHA's first completed project; the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (...

NY exhibitions reflect on Latin American midcentury architecture + design

2015-03-30T16:01:00-04:00

Until the advent of cable television and then the Internet, Latin Americans, creators and consumers alike, were often more aware of trends in Europe and the United States than in nations neighboring theirs: Whatever similarities in style that emerged regionally were largely the result of discrete, parallel responses to the challenges of urbanization, poverty and the need to somehow integrate modernity and tradition.

Midcentury architecture and design from the Latin America region seems to be a trend in recent exhibitions in MoMA, MAD, and Americas Society in New York. New York Times writer Larry Rohter compares and contrasts the exhibitions, which shed light on the all-too-familiar tension of integrating globalized innovation with local traditions and techniques that was present throughout Latin American architecture and design.

Bernard Tschumi retrospective opens on April 30 at Centre Pompidou, Paris

2014-04-09T20:41:00-04:00

Book a trip to the Centre Pompidou in Paris this summer. The Centre is hosting the first major European retrospective of iconic French-Swiss architect and theorist Bernard Tschumi from April 30 to July 28, 2014. Exploring Tschumi's work from 1975 to the present, the exhibition will feature a thematic arrangement of archival documents, films, and around 350 of his never-before-seen sketches, drawings, collages, and models -- all displayed in an installation he designed himself.

"The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou — based on Bernard Tschumi’s work as an architect, educator, and writer — explores the making of architecture as a series of arguments, ideas, influences, and responses to the contemporary definition of architecture today."

Get more details on Bustler.

WUHO Gallery Kickstarts fund for the first Deborah Sussman retrospective

2013-11-07T13:23:00-05:00

Love Deborah Sussman? Woodbury University's WUHO Gallery in Los Angeles began the "Deborah Sussman Loves LA!" Kickstarter on Oct. 25 with a goal to host the first retrospective dedicated to the iconic graphic designer this December. Funding will mainly support installation of the exhibition as well as the creation of a poster and a panel discussion.

Here's a description of the exhibition:

"This December 2013, Woodbury University’s WUHO Gallery will host an exhibition dedicated to the groundbreaking environmental graphic design of Deborah Sussman. This will be the first retrospective of her early work, including projects completed while she was at the Eames Office up to the 1984 Olympics. This will be a month-long celebration that will include a panel discussion, gallery exhibition, and poster publication. The exhibition is curated and organized by Catherine Gudis, Barbara Bestor, Thomas Kracauer, and Shannon Starkey."

"From her years with the Eames Studio in the 1950s and 1960s, her pa...

Richard Rogers' Homeshell built in 24 hours at London's Royal Academy

2013-08-20T14:33:00-04:00

The pre-fabricated, flatpack homes of Pritzker laureate Richard Rogers are a centerpiece for his 50-year retrospective, “Richard Rogers: Inside Out”, currently at London's Royal Academy of Arts until Oct. 13. The homes, which are an adaptation of his 2007 Oxley Woods housing development, are described as "stepping away from the traditional mud and mess of the domestic building site" and with a full list of pros: easily adaptable, lightweight, energy-efficient, low-cost, fire- and water-retardant, even earthquake and hurricane-proof, and of course, innovative -- just to name a few.

The pieces of the 3-story technicolor Homeshell arrived at the RA last week. It was fully assembled within 24 hours, making a clear statement in the debate for the wider availability of cost- and energy-efficient, mass-production homes in Britain.

Watch the video below to see a time-lapse of the house's construction.
And click here for another video that gives an exclusive look into Rogers' retrospe...

A. Quincy Jones' LA retrospective at the Hammer Museum

2013-08-16T19:41:00-04:00

"A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living" is the LA-based architect's first major museum retrospective happening now until Sept. 8 at the Hammer Museum.

Practicing architecture in Los Angeles from 1939 to his death in 1979, Jones -- or Quincy, as he was known -- is described as a quiet modernist who constantly emphasized the concept of "better living" and collaboration in his work. In addition to Jones' more glamorous projects for higher-status clients like actor Gary Cooper and art collectors Frances and Sidney Brody, Jones also made major contributions to middle-class housing in the post-war period.

A dedicated architecture professor at USC, Jones was just as committed to raising the housing design standards for a growing middle class by implementing cost-effective, sustainable, and inventive methods. He was also the first to see such developments as communal spaces through shared green spaces, non-grid site planning, and various home models.

Jones is credited to ove...

Gaetano Pesce retrospective opens in NYC

2013-05-09T11:28:00-04:00

Pesce hasn’t had a comprehensive solo show in his adopted hometown since a 1999 exhibit tucked away at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. “He’s a legend and a New Yorker, so that tragedy needed to be corrected,” said Steven Learner, the creative director of the new Collective.1 Design Fair, where Pesce’s retrospective opened today.

For more information on the Collective .1 Design Fair, click here.

Richard Meier Reflects on His Last 50 Years, With Retrospective Opening in Italy

2013-05-08T12:39:00-04:00

I’m very happy to see all the works on display, and we’re busier now than we were then. We’re looking at things that we’re doing in the future. I think it’s good to be able to share so much of the work we have done that people wouldn’t otherwise come in contact with it. The exhibitions are good in that respect. We have all this stuff. Why keep it in the office? Send it out.

Lebbeus Woods: The Architect Who Dared to Ask ‘What If?’

2013-02-16T18:37:00-05:00

San Francisco Project: Inhabiting the Quake, Quake City, 1995; graphite and pastel on paper; 14.5 inches by 23 inches by 0.75 inches; Collection SFMOMA.

Lewis Wallace previews the new exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Lebbeus Woods, Architect. While not a full retrospective of Woods’ career, the exhibit shows off three decades of his work in the form of drawings, paintings, models and sketchbooks filled with bold ideas, raw concepts and cryptic inscriptions.