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Carlo Ratti presents theme and title for 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

2024-05-07T14:38:00-04:00

Curator Carlo Ratti has announced the title and theme for next year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. The 19th International Architectural Exhibition will advance under the banner Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., a portmanteau title representing different forms of intelligence supported by four pillars: Transdisciplinarity, Living Lab, Space For Ideas, and Circularity Protocol.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of Carlo Ratti Associati says he wishes for curators of individual National Pavillions to consider his prompt “One place, one solution,” which asks for an attempt at coherence between theirs and the International Exhibition. He added: “Showcasing how local ingenuity can address our time’s existential challenge that can only be tackled in a cooperative manner, reflecting a multiplicity of approaches. If every country brings one success to the table, together we can assemble a global kit for adapting to the future.”

“The 19th Internat...

Tizziana Baldenebro will lead the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation as its next executive director

2024-02-29T17:35:00-05:00

The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF)’s search for a new organizational leader has culminated in the appointment of Tizziana Baldenebro as its next executive director following a national search that began this fall.

Baldenebro, who replaces the long-tenured and well-admired Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, has past experience as the director of SPACES, a 45-year-old nonprofit that was founded to encourage community engagement with the arts in northeast Ohio.

Baldenebro was, along with other members of SPACES, most recently a co-curator of last year’s U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale and comes to the position informed by her childhood in Los Angeles and subsequent experiences in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago.

"We are thrilled to welcome Tizziana to our organization as she takes the helm in guiding us through our next phase of growth and advancement in championing women in architecture, engineering, construction, and related fields," Angelica T. Ba...

Curator Tanja Hwang joins MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design

2024-01-09T12:39:00-05:00

New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has announced the addition of curator Tanja Hwang to its Department of Architecture and Design.

Effective today, January 9, Hwang will join the museum and begin working in a capacity that entails managing the design collection, expanding the department’s acquisitions program, organizing exhibitions, managing exhibition catalogs and other publications, as well as “cultivating relationships within the Museum and in the design community.”

Hwang begins at the museum after serving as one of the first curatorial staffers at Hong Kong’s Herzog & de Meuron-designed M+ museum and having completed her academic training at the Freie Universität Berlin, according to a LinkedIn profile.

In a statement, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA, Martino Stierli, said: “Tanja comes to us with a global perspective and a deep knowledge of the canonical history of modern design. With her background in organizing exhibitions at both the...

Carlo Ratti will curate the 2025 Venice Biennale Architecture exhibition

2023-12-21T13:16:00-05:00

Carlo Ratti has been named as Director of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the 2025 La Biennale di Venezia by the fair’s Board of Directors and at the recommendation of current and future Presidents Roberto Cicutto and Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and director of Carlo Ratti Associati follows Lesley Lokko’s turn as the 2023 Venice Biennale Architecture curator.

Ratti will lean on past curatorial experiences with the Future Food District pavilion at Expo 2015 Milan; the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow; and the second Porto Design Biennale in 2021 to inform his creative direction for the exhibition. A focus on the growing influence of technology on design and urban planning will most likely follow, culminating in an impressive intellectual output that has seen him write or co-author more than 750 different research publications.

Previewing his direction, Ratti said: “We architects like to ...

U.S. Pavilion for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale analyzes the human relationship with plastic

2023-05-18T18:11:00-04:00

The United States Pavilion for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale has been completed ahead of the event’s May 20th public opening. Organized by the Cleveland-based alternative art organization SPACES, and titled Everlasting Plastics, the exhibition seeks to explore “one of the most ubiquitous materials in our world: plastic.”

Externalities by Ang Li. Photo credit: ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography

Investigating how plastic has permeated modern life, the exhibition reframes attitudes and approaches toward addressing the overabundance of plastic waste in waterways, landfills, and streets. Acknowledging the global dependence on the material, the pavilion seeks to make a case for a “profound reconsideration for how we coexist with plastics and its possibilities as an agent for change.”

PROOFING: Resistant and Ready by Xavi L. Aguirre. Photo credit: ReportArch / Andrea Ferro Photography

“In representing the United States at La Biennale, we wanted to draw a connection between an indu...

MVRDV’s Winy Maas to curate biennale on threatened Van Gogh landscapes

2023-04-17T13:36:00-04:00

MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas has been selected as curator for the Van Gogh Homeland Biennale. Set to launch in 2025, the event will draw attention to the Brabant landscapes in the Netherlands which featured in many Vincent Van Gogh paintings more than a hundred years ago and are now under threat from climate change.

Image credit: MVRDV

The Biennale is part of a broader collaboration between Midpoint Brabant, MVRDV, and the Van Gogh Homeland Foundation, which aims to raise public awareness of the challenges faced by the Dutch landscape, where the number of flood events is increasing, and tensions are rising between farmers, cities, industries, and nature lovers over land use.

The team hopes that a blend of architecture, landscape design, sustainability, and leisure backgrounds will “show in an attractive and accessible way how the landscape that inspired Vincent van Gogh 150 years ago can be made more sustainable and greener in the future.”

Image credit: MVRDV

The Biennale will in...

Lesley Lokko tells Rowan Moore architecture's story is still 'incomplete'

2023-03-29T11:00:00-04:00

It’s a fact that Africa stands for something that comes from outside. But Africans share something that is 100% there. There is a sense, particularly among the young, that the time has come to define that something on their own terms. There is a sense that it is our time.

The woman tasked with leading the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice this summer told The Guardian critic about the ideas involved in producing the Biennale, which promises a packed slate highlighting the untapped potential Africa contains.

She also spoke to Africa’s status as a continent lacking in homegrown architects and defined by “instability and invention, minimally constrained by professional structures, where the 'speed of change is likely to outstrip the ability to understand it.'”

Polymathic Nigerian designer Demas Nwoko was recently named as the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement recipient of this year's edition. The 2023 Venice Biennale opens May 20th with a special awards ceremony held at the exhibition’s Ca' Giustinian headquarters in San Marco.

Designing for The Met: How hiring the right exhibition designers impacts the changing nature of museums

2022-03-30T20:00:00-04:00

New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art has made several big announces these past few months: From news of a $500 million wing expansion designed by Frida Escobedo, an upcoming rooftop installation from artist Lauren Halsey, to the museum's Ancient Near East and Cypriot Art gallery renovation led by NADAAA and Moody Nolan, The Met is setting its sights on what 2022 and beyond will bring.

Learning from the pandemic and the socio-economical events of 2020 and 2021, museum and exhibition design continues to evolve and change, hopefully for the better. As cultural institutions across the globe continue to reopen and prepare for another year of exhibitions, many dare to ask what the future of exhibition design will look like. Who are the future exhibition designers? What does it take for motivated individuals to work for one of today's leading museums?

The Met's "In America: A Lexicon of Fashion" exhibition. Depicted is a dress designed by international fashion designer and design a...

Architectural historian and curator Irene Sunwoo joins Art Institute of Chicago as new Architecture and Design Chair

2021-02-15T20:19:00-05:00

Art Institute of Chicago names Irene Sunwoo the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design. Sunwoo's extensive background in architectural history, exhibition, and curatorial studies create an exciting chapter for the Institute and its leadership.

Sunwoo served as Curator of Columbia GSAPP's Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery and Director of Exhibitions since 2016 and curator of the Ross Gallery. Her writing has been featured in the Avery Review, Getty Research Journal, to name a few. She is in the process of writing two books focusing on Alvin Boyarsky and Arakawa and Madeline Gins' architectural experiments. Well-versed and heavily invested in Chicago's architectural history and curatorial community, Sunwoo served as Associate Curator and a key team member for the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial launch in 2015.

Sunwoo completed her undergraduate studies at New York University in Art History. She also holds two MAs from Bard College in History of Decorative Art...

Jia Yi Gu appointed new director of MAK Center for Art and Architecture

2021-01-12T19:09:00-05:00

An active member of LA's architecture and design scene, Jia Yi Gu is appointed as the MAK Center for Art and Architecture director. After a long search by the Center, she will take on directorial and curatorial responsibilities with her wide-ranging expertise in architectural curation, history, research, and design leadership.

Currently a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA for Critical Studies in Architecture, she graduated with honors from the University of California San Diego with a B.A. in Visual Arts and a Master of Architecture degree from UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. She explains that her Ph.D. work focuses on "the instrumentality of models in the postwar architecture office as a site of demonstration for architectural expertise."

Archinect Feature: Spinagu Exemplifies a Contemporary Practice with Academia, Profession & Experimentation all Running at Full Steam. Image Thick, the exhibition. SCI-Arc Gallery, 2017

She brings her vast knowledge in curatorial practice and institution ...

Monica Obniski appointed curator of decorative arts and design at High Museum of Art in Atlanta

2020-02-24T12:14:00-05:00

Monica Obniski, the current 20th and 21st Century Design curator at the Milwaukee Art Museum, has been selected to lead curatorial efforts for the decorative arts and design at the High Museum in Atlanta.

According to a High Museum press release, Obniski will oversee exhibitions and programs for the institution's 2,300-object collection, which dates from the 17th century to today. Obinski will also oversee the High’s Piazza activations event series, a "multiyear initiative that launched in 2014 to animate the Museum’s outdoor space with site-specific commissions that engage visitors of all ages in participatory art experiences," according to the announcement.

Photo of the High Museum in Atlanta. Image courtesy of Flickr user Aleksandr Zykov.

In a statement, Obniski explained: “I am excited to contribute to the High’s mission centered on diversity, inclusion and accessibility as well as build on the museum’s noteworthy decorative arts and design collection. As a curator and historia...

Educator and historian John Beardsley selected to curate inaugural Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize

2020-02-11T13:06:00-05:00

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has named arts curator and landscape educator John Beardsley as the inaugural curator for the forthcoming Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize.

The prize, which is set to be awarded for the first time in 2021 and will come with a $100,000 cash award as well as the resources for conducting two years' worth of "public engagement activities," was launched in 2019 by TCLF.

The prize is named after Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, a designer of dozens of widely acclaimed works, including the birch tree-filled 4,900-square-foot lobby garden located at the base of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop-designed New York Times Building in Manhattan.

Previously on Archinect: "Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize set to launch in 2021." Cornelia Hahn Oberlander is the namesake for a new international landscape architecture prize. Image courtesy of Province of British Colum...

A curator's take on a smaller 'expanded' LACMA

2019-06-17T15:51:00-04:00

[...] it’s worth considering one of the issues that drove so much of the criticism: the ideal—said to be lost in the soon-to-be-transformed institution—of the museum as an “encyclopaedia” of collections, one necessitating a particular form of architecture permanently exhibiting its collection in chronologically sequenced galleries organised by medium and culture.

Michael Conforti, former director of the Clark Art Institute and previously a curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and also at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, writes in defense of LACMA's controversial plan of a considerably smaller 'expansion,' designed by Peter Zumthor, citing curatorial shifts in recent decades.

Image: Atelier Peter Zumthor & Partner/The Boundary

"The early 21st-century art museum, civic and social space that it also is, is designed for a public expecting an equal experience with art, architecture and amenities, a public with little consciousness of the square footage applied to any one of these," explains Conforti's opinion piece in The Art Newspaper. "Los Angeles is now committed to building such a museum, doing so as it plans other sites for curatorial activity, ones responsive to its special urban condition. This seems appropriate [...]."

Materials & Applications to move out of Silver Lake home and expand programming into other LA neighborhoods

2018-03-27T19:49:00-04:00

Materials & Applications—the part gallery, part research space, and part pocket park, that has been a cultural center for the Los Angeles architecture community since 2003—will be moving out of its Silver Lake home.

"Our mission is to bring creative experimentation into public space and public dialogue and we will continue to do so by expanding into new spaces and new audiences throughout Los Angeles" the group stated in an e-mail sent out today with the news.

The non-profit cultural organization's expansion will include the launch of two new spaces—a new office headquarters in Chinatown and a tiny storefront/satellite space on Sunset Blvd that will host intimate events and displays. In lieu of their permanent space, Materials & Applications will broaden their programming into various neighborhoods throughout the Los Angeles area with temporary projects and multi-sited exhibitions.

The organization tested out this process in 2016, with theirTURF: A Mini-Golf Project, which transfor...

Aric Chen of M+ receives top Design Curator Award at the inaugural Design Prize in Milan

2017-07-03T15:59:00-04:00

Launched this year, The Design Prize is an annual awards program, organised by the media outlets designboom and Abitare under the auspices of the City of Milan.

Aric Chen, a lead curator for Design and Architecture at one of the world's largest visual art museum, M+ in Hong Kong has been named the winner in the Design Curator and Design Critic category. Since joining M+ in 2012, Chen has led the museum’s efforts in building its design and architecture collection, which currently includes approximately 3,000 works out of a total of more than 6,000. The museum building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, is scheduled to open in 2019.

Show and Tell: MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design, Martino Stierli, on One-to-One #38

2016-09-19T17:04:00-04:00

Martino Stierli took over as MoMA's chief curator of architecture and design in 2015, when the museum was already undergoing major changes. Diller Scofidio + Renfro's redesign was underway, and the architecture and design galleries faced something of an uncertain future in the expanded museum layout. On the podcast, Stierli dispels the rumors that the galleries would be closed permanently, and discusses MoMA's strategies for exhibiting architecture, as well as his plans to diversify the museum's collection.

Listen to One-to-One #38 with Martino Stierli:

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SCI-Arc launches "MEAT," a curatorial summer program

2016-02-05T20:52:00-05:00

In the short time since Hernan Diaz Alonso assumed directorship of SCI-Arc, the prestigious architecture institute has already seen quite a few changes. Adding to the roster of programs at the newly-founded EDGE, a graduate center focusing on something like the "edges" of the rapidly-expanding discipline, SCI-Arc has just announced "MEAT", or "Making Exhibitions in Architecture Today", a graduate-level summer program for aspiring architecture curators.

Helmed by the respected theorist (and UCLA faculty member) Sylvia Lavin, MEAT intends to introduce summer students to the "intellectual and curatorial potentials in architectural exhibition practices".

The program will comprise a three and a half week course following an "intensive schedule of seminars and excursions," notably to local museums, galleries, and studios. Guest lecturers will include Sarah Herda of the Graham Foundation, Paola Antonelli from MoMA, and Giovanna Borasi from the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

“Launching ...

Undisciplining the discipline: Beatrice Galilee @ SCI-Arc

2015-12-09T19:49:00-05:00

Exhibiting architecture is a notoriously difficult and contentious task. After all, how do you represent a spatial practice without neglecting the very qualities that made it worth representing in the first place? Nonetheless, it has a long history – extending at least as far back as the Enlightenment, according to the historian Barry Bergdoll.

Still, there’s likely never been a period with more exhibits, biennials, triennials than the last few decades. Just about every major city in the world, from Venice to Chicago, Oslo to Jakarta, now hosts some big architecture event. Beatrice Galilee, a trained architect and the newly-appointed curator of architecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has played a significant role in shaping and pushing the boundaries of this practice. In a talk delivered last night at SCI-Arc, she relayed some of the major – and often controversial – moves made over the course of her trajectory to becoming the first-ever architecture curator at th...