CHICAGO
Young Chicago
Chicago Art Institute Through April 29
Chicago's reputation as an incubator of fresh ideas is bolstered by this exhibition of digital and conceptual work gathered by Joseph Rosa, new curator of the newly renamed Department of Architecture and Design. Studio output from young architects, industrial designers, graphic artists, and fashion designers asserts Chicago's pivotal role on the national stage. Names to note include Qua'Virarch, UrbanLab, Clare Lyster Studio, 3D Design Studio, John Ronan Architect, Ross Wimer/SOM, Studio Blue, JNL Design, and Cat Chow. To appreciate the historical context of the contemporary talents, visitors may also want to view “Louis H. Sullivan: A System of Architectural Ornament Part I,” on display at the institute through Feb. 18. Above: Visitor Information Center, Chicago, by UrbanLab.
BARTLESVILLE, OKLA.
Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture
Price Tower Arts Center Through March 4
Five decades of streamlined industrial design provide a picture of design ingenuity at Frank Lloyd Wright's restored skyscraper on the Oklahoma prairie.
COLUMBUS, OHIO
Architecture Interruptus Wexner Center for the Arts
Ohio State University Through April 15
The Church of Saint Pierre in Firminy, France, was designed in the 1960s by Le Corbusier with Jose Oubrerie. Only now has Oubrerie been able to bring the project to fruition. An exhibition and catalog convey the partnership in sketches, photos, drawings, and a new model.
HOLLYWOOD, CALIF.
Some Assembly Required: Contemporary Fabricated Houses
Pacific Design Center February 28–May 13
If dreams of an Airstream trailer lurk in Steven Holl's shiny metal Turbulence House, a sunny day in Napa Valley must have inspired Michelle Kaufmann's Breezehouse. Six more forward-looking houses, some made from kits of parts, expose modularity at the edge.
LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y.
Shin Banraisha: A Cultural Memory
The Noguchi Museum Through April 1
Isamu Noguchi's “New Welcoming Space” for Tokyo's Keio University was designed in 1951–52 with Yoshio Taniguchi as a symbol of postwar regeneration. The room was dismantled in 2003 to make way for a new building. Artifacts, furniture, and architectural elements have been assembled at the Noguchi Museum. The museum hopes to generate awareness of the importance of preserving cultural heritage, including functional spaces that double as works of art.
LOS ANGELES
Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture
The Museum of Contemporary Art Through March 5
Architectonic garments and buildings inspired by fabrics are only the starting point for a groundbreaking exhibition of 300 examples of avant-garde clothing and buildings by 46 designers. Architects include Shigeru Ban, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Peter Eisenman, Foreign Office Architects, Gehry Partners, Zaha Hadid, Herzog + de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas, and Bernard Tschumi.
MIAMI BEACH, FLA.
Modernism in American Silver: 20th Century Design
Wolfsonian-Florida International University Through March 25
More than 200 works of American silver, made between 1925 and 2000, convey the rich aesthetics achieved in a timeless material. Small-scale masterpieces were designed by Eliel Saarinen, Robert Venturi, Michael Graves, and Richard Meier in this traveling exhibition organized by the Dallas Museum of Art.
MINNEAPOLIS
Streamline Design: The Essence of Speed
Minneapolis Institute of Art Through September 28
The acquisition of a 1936 Tatra T87 automobile inspired this display of aerodynamicism in objects created by America's 20th century superstars: Norman Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, and Henry Dreyfuss. Also on view is the institute's newly completed expansion, by Michael Graves.
NEW HAVEN, CONN.
UN Studio: Evolution of Space
Yale University School of Architecture February 12–May 4
The Amsterdam-based firm is best-known for the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam. This exhibition, created by the Deutsches Architektur Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, will include the firm's recently completed Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
NEW YORK
OMA in Beijing: China Central Television Headquarters Museum of Modern Art Through February 26
Dutch architects Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren of OMA are contributing to China's urban genesis through a technologically advanced loop-shaped tower in central Beijing, which will be completed in time for the 2008 Olympics. Renderings and models at MoMA are intended to convey the iconic structure as “one of the most visionary undertakings in the history of modern architecture.”
Design Life Now: National Design Triennial Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Through July 29
For a third time, the Cooper-Hewitt has assembled a team of curators to assess contemporary design culture at the front lines. Leading artists and practitioners point the way forward in disciplines as diverse as architecture, animation, medicine, and robotics. Only the prosaic will be left behind.
Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting Museum of Arts & Design Through June 17
Rubber, lead, glass, and wire shelving transform an old technique into 40 miniatures, architectural interventions, and video installations.
James “Athenian” Stuart, 1713–1788, The Rediscovery of Antiquity The Bard Graduate Center Through February 11
Director and curator Susan Weber Soros sheds light on the English architect and designer behind The Antiquities of Athens, a highly influential sketchbook that defined Greece for 18th century Britons and inspired the development of neoclassicism. Original gouaches, rare editions, and interior designs by Stuart will travel to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall—An Artist's Country Estate The Metropolitan Museum of Art Through May 20
The artist's utopian vision is revived in a recreation of his Long Island home, through surviving fragments, windows, objects, and photos.
PITTSBURGH
Gritty Brits: New London Architecture Heinz Architectural Center Through June 3
There is more to London architecture than the stately balustrades of Buckingham Palace or the bold outlines of Norman Foster's Gherkin. In the so-called gritty East End, six emerging talents play off contemporary visual culture to define post-industrial, multicultural architecture on a more intimate scale.
PROVIDENCE, R.I.
Urban America, 1930–1970 Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art Through February 25
An exhibition of 30 prints, drawings, and photographs by American artists conveys a dramatic urban transformation in Harlem, N.Y., Providence, and New Orleans.
RICHMOND, VA.
Growing Country, Growing Needs: Federal Architecture and Art Virginia Center for Architecture February 2–May 27
Robert A.M. Stern's new federal courthouse in Richmond sparked this exhibition of recent projects, including border stations and fine art, completed under the U.S. General Services Administration's Design Excellence Program.
SAN FRANCISCO
Charles Sheeler: Across Media MH De Young Memorial Museum February 10–May 6
Manhattan circa 1920 and Ford's River Rouge Plant at its most prosperous are preserved in Sheeler's film, drawings, photographs, and other works in this traveling show.
SANTA MONICA, CALIF.
Strange New World: Art and Design from Tijuana Santa Monica Museum of Art Through April 21
Architectural proposals, digital art, music, and more create a portrait of Tijuana as a paradigm of the postmodern city, shaped by globalization, transnationalism, and a headlong, haphazard rush into the 21st century.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
All Horizons Quebec Design Embassy of Canada Through April 15
More than 100 recent works and prototypes by 15 industrial designers working in Quebec range from furniture and interactive fabrics to a bicycle frame in carbon fiber. The exhibition was organized by the UQAM Design Centre in Montreal and Apartment Zero in Washington.
Reinventing the Globe: Shakespeare for the 21st Century National Building Museum Through August 30
A team of designers tackles the 21st century question: If the Bard were alive today, what would his theater look like? The creative process is revealed in models, drawings, renderings and an actual set where performances will take place during a citywide Shakespeare festival. This exhibition traces Shakespeare theaters from the 16th century to the present, addressing how to present 400-year-old plays to modern audiences.
ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS
Architecture of the Night: Luminous Buildings Netherlands Architecture Institute, Through May 6
A century of artificial light has transformed the built environment. This exhibition begins with the novel choreography of illumination staged for the debut of the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 Paris world's fair and progresses to the “light pollution” experienced in cities today. Architects must grapple with issues of energy efficiency along with safety and an awareness of how light changes biorhythms, pushing design decisions into the political realm. This exhibition relies on façades by Toyo Ito, Renzo Piano, and Jean Nouvel, among others, to provoke dialogue. Illuminated models, photographs, and collages create a work of art in the darkened gallery.
Left: De Volharding, The Hague, by Jan W.E. Buys.
