Futures of the Architectural Exhibition: Conversations on the Display of Space

This book records a critical discussion of individual approaches to the representation of space in a museum through a series of conversations. Architectural exhibitions have always been important public sites of testing, dissemination, and consensus-building around fundamental questions in the built environment. Just as the master narratives of architectural Modernism in the US are hard to imagine without the International Style show at New York's MoMA in 1932, such displays have been crucial to shaping broader definitions and understandings of architecture and its relation to social, political, and economic questions of the contemporary world. The specific formats and challenges of exhibiting architecture, both built and speculative, have often been used as key devices for identifying and communicating urgent issues to a broader public. These have included cultural questions of equality and social justice, labour, race, class, and lifestyle in relation to spatial issues of density, living standards, infrastructure, climate, and sustainability.? ?Futures of the Architectural Exhibition records a critical discussion of individual approaches to the representation of space in a museum through a series of conversations. Five eminent international curators speculate on the specific challenges and potentials of exhibiting architecture. AUTHORS: Reto Geiser is a designer and scholar of modern architecture. He is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Rice University's School of Architecture in Houston, TX. 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. SELLING POINTS: . A critical discussion of individual approaches to the representation of built space in a museum through a series of conversations with Mario Ballesteros (Director and Chief Curator of Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, Mexico City), Giovanna Borasi (Director of Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal), Ana Miljacki (Assistant Professor of Architecture at MIT), Zoë Ryan (John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at AIC, Chicago), and Martino Stierli (Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA, New York) . Architecture exhibitions have always been crucial to shaping broader definitions and understandings of architecture and its relation to social, political, and economic questions of the contemporary world 50 b/w illustrations

About the Author :
Reto Geiser is a designer and scholar of modern architecture. He is an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Rice University’s School of Architecture in Houston, TX. 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.

Review :
"The book that has me thinking about exhibitions and their books is Futures of the Architectural Exhibition, which features interviews with seven primarily North American curators, conducted between 2018 and 2021 in concert with lectures and student workshops at Rice University, where editors Reto Geiser and Michael Kubo teach. Although the conversations tackle considerations of exhibitions that are well beyond books -- including acquisitions and archives, digital media, authors and audiences, and the diversity of subjects, among other things -- the parts of the conversations addressing books held my attention the most."-- "A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books"