As the architectural world turns its attention toward the warmer months, a robust international calendar of exhibitions, major trade fairs, design festivals, and high-profile competitions is taking shape. From explorations of Cold War-era socialist spaces and the future of sustainable horticulture to massive urban transit overhauls and global architecture prizes, the coming months offer design professionals and enthusiasts a wide-ranging array of cultural programming across Europe and the United States.
Among the standout museum presentations is a collaborative exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin. Titled Retrotopia: Design for Socialist Spaces, the project explores the vast and often overlooked body of work produced by architects and designers in the former Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. By displaying both realized and conceptual spaces imagined by creators working from behind the Iron Curtain, the exhibition successfully brings to light figures who remain little known in the Western world. Among these are Czech architect Věra Machoninová, Estonian designers Sirje Runge and Bruno Tomberg, and German architect Lutz Brandt, offering a nuanced look at the alternative modernization paths pursued during the decades of the 1960s through the 1980s.
Across the Rhine in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Vitra Design Museum is presenting Garden Futures: Designing with Nature. Designed by the Milan-based studio Formafantasma, the exhibition examines the history and future of the modern garden, arguing persuasively for horticulture as a potentially radical means of spatial experimentation and social incubation. Encompassing a broad scope of inquiry that touches on contemporary community gardens, green facades, and vertical urban farms, the exhibition features historical and contemporary work by legendary landscape architects Roberto Burle Marx and Mien Ruys, alongside artist Derek Jarman. The exhibition runs through October 3, 2023.
Ongoing Exhibitions
In academic and museum galleries, several ongoing exhibitions continue to draw critical acclaim. At the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Druker Design Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, visitors can explore Reconfiguring the City Through Radical Infrastructure: Grand Paris Express. The exhibition accompanies the GSD’s decision in January to award its 14th Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design to the Grand Paris Express, currently the largest transit infrastructure project in Europe. Slated for completion in 2030, this ambitious regional plan will add four new metro lines, 125 miles of new tracks, and 68 new stations to the Paris public transit system, effectively connecting underserved peripheral neighborhoods to the historic city center. The gallery showcase features detailed project models, renderings, and documentary video footage illustrating the monumental scale of the winning project through the end of March 2023.
Meanwhile, in Tallinn, Estonia, the Estonian Museum of Architecture is hosting Forecast and Fantasy: Architecture Without Borders, 1960s–1980s. Curated by architectural scholars Andres Kurg and Mari Laanemets of the Estonian Academy of the Arts, the exhibition explores European architecture during two turbulent decades of the late 20th century. The presentation centers on the utopian designs of the era’s so-called "paper architects." Responding to the emerging technological realities of the period, these designers sought to dismantle the Modernist utopias of scientific planning and social engineering, instead imagining a harmonious new relationship between humans, machines, nature, and the built environment. The exhibition features work by more than 30 architects and collectives, including Yuri Avvakumov, István B. Gellér, Jozef Jankovič, Archizoom, OHO, and Superstudio, through April 30, 2023.
In Berlin, the Museum of Architectural Drawing is presenting Aldo Rossi. Insulae in collaboration with the Fondazione Aldo Rossi in Milan. The exhibition displays over 110 works by the late Italian architect, many of which are being shown to the public for the first time. The show is organized into three distinct sections: Corpus Mediolanensis, Works for Berlin, and Insula. The latter series, from which the exhibition draws its evocative title, comprises a collection of drawings by Rossi inspired directly by architectural models from antiquity. The drawings, including notable 1987 works such as Sunrise on the Giudecca with the Mondo Theatre 81 and The large construction site of Fukuoka, remain on view through May 14, 2023.
Events
The spring season also marks the triumphant return of several major industry gatherings. The Salone del Mobile, widely recognized as the world’s largest furniture fair, returns to Milan from April 18 to 23, 2023. Celebrating its 61st year, the massive trade show returns to its traditional April slot following three years of disruptions, cancellations, and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing hundreds of thousands of international visitors, the fair will once again showcase the cutting edge of global furnishings and lighting design, supplemented this year by a special cultural exhibition curated by architect Mario Cucinella.
In northern Spain, the architecture and design festival Concentrérico 09 is set to take place in Logroño from April 27 to May 2, 2023. Now in its ninth iteration, the six-day festival transforms the city with a dynamic roster of temporary installations, events, and exhibitions that celebrate the public realm, community engagement, and civic life through innovative design interventions.
Looking ahead to early summer, Chicago will host the annual NeoCon trade show from June 12 to 14, 2023. Established in the city in 1969, NeoCon continues to serve as a premier gathering space for commercial interior design professionals to discover emerging trends and technological innovations. This year’s floor plan features nearly one million square feet of exhibition space, showcasing upwards of 400 product lines from established industry leaders and up-and-coming designers alike.
Competitions
For practitioners and students looking to submit their work for international recognition, several notable competitions have announced open calls and impending deadlines. The Holcim Foundation has set a March 30, 2023 deadline for the Holcim Awards 2023. This global competition recognizes projects that successfully combine sustainable design and construction with architectural excellence. Submissions are evaluated against the Foundation’s rigorous criteria for sustainable construction, with Gold, Silver, and Bronze prizes awarded across five major geographic regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and the Asia Pacific. Regional winners will receive cash prizes and invitations to attend the official prize announcement at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
In the United States, the AIA St. Louis chapter has opened its annual National Photography Competition, inviting submissions from licensed architects and currently enrolled architecture students. The competition honors excellence in the photographic interpretation of the built environment, with winning entries slated for publication in Architectural Record and exhibition at the upcoming AIA conference in April. The submission deadline is April 3, 2023.
Finally, the Architecture at Zero 2023 competition, presented in part by AIA California, has issued a call for design proposals focused on an agricultural center in Allensworth, California—the first town in the state to be founded, financed, and governed by African-Americans. Centering on core principles of decarbonization, equity, and resilience, the competition brief challenges students and professionals to craft designs that honor and advance the historic site’s ongoing aspiration to serve as a thriving destination for sustainable agriculture and Black history. Submissions for this competition are due by June 15, 2023.
