Architectural exhibitions aimed at a general audience are notoriously difficult to pull off successfully. Small-scale representations—such as photographs, physical models, architectural drawings, and, increasingly, dynamic video projections—can only ever approximate the genuine sense of a full-size, completed work. Much like traditional art objects, these displays must find a way to instantly captivate the museum visitor while simultaneously acknowledging the thicket of real-world constraints that shape a building’s form, including programmatic requirements, site limitations, and strict budgets.
When the architectural projects on display possess an explicitly socially or environmentally conscious dimension, the curatorial challenge becomes significantly tougher. These displays may inherently lack the traditional "wow factor"—the dazzling visual panache of extravagantly innovative or elegant architectural works and objects that routinely make museum visitors stop dead in their tracks. Furthermore, a persistent danger lurks behind every vitrine and wall label: the risk that providing the necessary textual and contextual information required to genuinely appreciate the projects displayed will transform the exhibition space into a heavy, uninviting walk-in book.
Undaunted by these complex issues, two leading American art and design institutions, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, both based in New York City, have actively embraced this demanding genre of exhibition over the last few years. Both prominent museums have boldly organized ambitious design shows that directly address the pressing, often uncomfortable issues of problematic living conditions, climate change, and urban distress around the globe.
The Rise of Socially Responsible Design at Cooper-Hewitt
When the Cooper-Hewitt mounted Design for the Other 90% at its palatial quarters on upper Fifth Avenue back in 2007, the exhibition generated a tremendous amount of media attention and drew an impressive audience of 100,000 visitors. Recognizing the profound public resonance of the material, the museum designated Cynthia Smith—who had organized the original show—as its official Curator of Socially Responsible Design in 2009.
Smith, an industrial designer with a deep background in public service, followed up the initial success with a highly anticipated sequel titled Design with the Other 90%: CITIES. The exhibition opened for a successful three-month run in October 2011 at the United Nations headquarters while the Cooper-Hewitt’s permanent building underwent extensive expansion. The show displayed 65 innovative projects hailing from 25 different countries, concentrating heavily on the complex realities of slums and informal settlements across the Global South. It ultimately drew 150,000 visitors, including a vast number of UN diplomats, international delegates, and staff members.
Reflecting on the unique venue, Smith noted that the international setting proved ideal for the subject matter. "The United Nations was a great location," she says.
MoMA’s Public Engagement with Urban and Environmental Crises
Meanwhile, MoMA’s exhibitions in this demanding arena have proven to be even more exceptionally popular with the general public. Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, an exhibition devoted entirely to visionary architects’ theoretical solutions for rising sea levels driven by global warming, hit a remarkable high of 881,520 visitors over the course of its six-and-a-half-month duration in 2010.
Shortly after, Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement—which examined innovative, community-focused design created for underserved populations across five continents—opened in October 2010 and successfully drew 311,188 visitors during its three-month stay.
Now, MoMA has further expanded this programmatic focus by installing Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream, which remains on view through July 30. With this latest exhibition, the museum has firmly deepened its socially conscious identity under the aegis of Barry Bergdoll, who has served as the chief curator of architecture and design since 2006.
Bergdoll, who also maintains a position as a professor of architectural history at Columbia University, might initially seem like an unlikely candidate to lead MoMA away from the prestigious monographic exhibitions dedicated to modern masters like Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe with which the institution has historically become so identified. Yet, Bergdoll is quick to point out deep historical precedents for this work. He notes that MoMA’s very first architecture show—the legendary Modern Architecture: International Exhibition of 1932—actually featured a significant social housing component. Over the subsequent decades, similar socially minded subjects appeared sporadically within the museum’s galleries.
An Institutional Shift Toward Ideas and Activism
Yet, the frequency of these do-good, socially engaged shows has clearly stepped up in recent years. As Joseph Rosa, the director of the University of Michigan Museum of Art, observes, "The museum today is becoming more of an incubator of ideas, with people thinking about socially minded critiques of culture."
For his part, Bergdoll explains that he is deliberately trying to pose critical questions that are rarely, if ever, addressed in normal architectural commissions. At the same time, he emphasizes quality and pedigree: "But the shows do involve architects whose work is already of interest, so we are continuing the traditional role of MoMA in culling the finest talent."
Much like the earlier Rising Currents show, the Foreclosed exhibition positioned MoMA in a distinctly activist role, moving beyond passive display to actually commission speculative design solutions developed through an intensive, collaborative workshop process. Bergdoll, who organized the project alongside Reinhold Martin, the director of Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, carefully isolated five distinct geographical areas across the United States—ranging from the suburbs of Florida to the exurbs of California—where the devastating banking mortgage crisis of 2007 and 2008 left behind stalled housing developments and vast swaths of publicly held land now ripe for creative redevelopment.
For each of the five selected sites, which were identified based on rigorous research conducted by the Buell Center, Bergdoll and Martin assigned a multidisciplinary team led by avant-garde architects but also including seasoned experts in finance, housing, urban planning, and infrastructure. Each collaborative team was tasked with creating provocative proposals meant to challenge conventional wisdom and inspire entirely new ways of thinking about housing, suburban density, and community living. Through this immersive approach, Bergdoll aims to actively engage the general public in understanding "how architects think."
Among the talented Foreclosed teams—which feature prominent architectural practices such as Studio Gang, MOS, WORKac, and Visible Weather—is Zago Architecture. Led by principal Andrew Zago, the firm proposed a radical redesign for a failed suburban subdivision pocked with abandoned, unbuilt lots located in an unincorporated section of Rialto, California, situated just east of Los Angeles. Zago’s quixotic and visually vibrant scheme presents a diverse array of alternative housing types, including duplexes and innovative row houses, skillfully rearranged across the landscape to avoid the deadly monotony and spatial segregation of the traditional single-family subdivision house, yard, and driveway model.
Navigating Nonvisual Materials and Exhibition Design
Because of the inherently complex and data-driven nature of socially oriented architectural exhibitions, Foreclosed naturally includes a substantial amount of nonvisual material. Indeed, an entire gallery within the exhibition is devoted solely to presenting the extensive socioeconomic data and statistical research that underpins the show’s ambitious program.
Granger Moorhead, who designed the Cooper-Hewitt’s exhibition at the United Nations, faced a similar curatorial problem when dealing with grainy documentary photographs and variously fabricated architectural models. Rather than attempting to force a slick, traditional "museum-quality" aesthetic onto the humble materials, Moorhead chose to lean into their raw character. "We tried to present the content in an informal, collaged way," he explains.
Faced with such thorny design and interpretive matters to consider, major art and design museums wisely seek out a balanced curatorial calendar over the long term. Looking ahead to the near future, the Cooper-Hewitt plans to devote an upcoming exhibition to the specialized field of graphic design, while MoMA has scheduled two major historical architecture shows next: one focusing on the pioneering proto-Modernist Henri Labrouste, and the other marking the institution’s very first comprehensive retrospective of the legendary Le Corbusier.
