From 10,000 metres below the sea, to 35,000 kilometers in orbit above the surface of the earth, the infrastructure that supports urban life has reached unimaginable extents below ground, in the water, and across outer space. Re-profiling the conventional contours of the cities we live and the spaces…
October 30, 2013–December 19, 2013 Pierre Bélanger, curator Airbases produce urban geographies and altitudinal ecologies. Whether military or civilian, active or closed, these infrastructures emerge from the technological development of aerial mobility and the contemporary growth of air power amidst the complexities of…
From Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Studio Basel, Switzerland has been described as a thoroughly urbanized nation. This exhibition takes a different tack, examining Switzerland as a landscape—a landscape of mountains and lakes, agglomeration and infrastructure, and design interventions large and small. The Swiss landscape, even more…
A Genealogy of Airport Landscape October 30, 2013–March 25, 2014 Sonja Dümpelmann, curator In the early decades of powered flight, the open fields used for the first flying experiments were turned into simple, level airfields and finally developed into…
An Archeology of the Present November 03, 2008–January 11, 2009 Moshen Mostafavi, Dean Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design, author Lluis Ortega, curator Utopias afford consolation: although they have no real locality there is nevertheless a fantastic, untroubled region in which they…
October 16, 2013–December 19, 2013 Luis Callejas, curator Pamphlet Architecture 33. "Islands and atolls" by Luis Callejas / LCLA The competition for Pamphlet Architecture 33 asked previous authors in the series to nominate the architects and theorists whose work represents the most exciting design…
October 30, 2013–December 19, 2013 Charles Waldheim, curator In the second half of the twentieth century, Chicago’s O’Hare Airport was the biggest and busiest facility of its kind in the world. Characterized by a seamless integration of transportation infrastructure and architectural expression, O’Hare…
March 23, 2015–May 15, 2015 Leire Asensio Villoria, curator Imagine a recording of a piece of classical music—or any musical recording, for that matter. As you listen, the emphasis is invariably on the sounds heard, apprehended, and felt by your ears, mind, and body.
The drawing of a parallel between cartography and architecture is instructive. Each lies in the field of the practical arts; each is older than history; and each, since its beginnings, has been more or less under the control of its consumers. —Arthur H. Robinson, The Look…
Polluted city riverways and wetlands, derelict waterfronts, landfills, railroad yards, and abandoned industrial processing plants, — these are the emerging sites of contemporary practice in landscape architecture, urban design, and site architecture. Characterized as waste, despoiled, and toxic, these landscapes are initially dependant for their…