RECORD’s monthly guide highlights the most anticipated upcoming and ongoing architecture and design exhibitions, major international festivals, and open competitions shaping the built environment.
Upcoming Exhibitions
More with Less: Reimagining Architecture for a Changing World
Newcastle, England — April 22 – September 10, 2023
The cultural landscape of Newcastle has a brand-new focal point with the opening of the Farrell Centre, a public exhibition space and research hub dedicated entirely to architecture and urbanism. Housed in a repurposed 19th-century department store, the institution was established under the leadership of prominent British architect Sir Terry Farrell. For its inaugural exhibition, the center has tasked four distinct architectural practices—Dress for the Weather, McCloy + Muchemwa, Office S&M, and the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment—with designing site-specific installations. These works aim to provoke fresh design responses to the ongoing climate emergency, exploring how the profession can drastically reduce its footprint while improving the resilience of the built environment.
Norman Foster
Paris — May 10 – August 7, 2023
In Paris, the Centre Pompidou is launching the largest retrospective to date celebrating the prolific, six-decade career of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster. Encompassing a sprawling 23,000-square-foot gallery space, the comprehensive exhibition brings together original drawings, detailed workbooks, and physical prototypes drawn from nearly 100 landmark projects. Visitors will have the opportunity to trace the evolution of Foster’s high-tech structural approach through foundational works spanning from the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, France, completed in 1993, to major infrastructure feats like the Hong Kong International Airport in 1998, up to contemporary corporate environments such as Apple Park in Cupertino, California, finished in 2017.
Ongoing Exhibitions
Technoscape: The Architecture of Engineers
Rome — Through April 16, 2023
At the Museo Nazionale MAXXI in Rome, visitors can explore the complex relationship between structural engineering and the pervasive integration of technology into modern living and working spaces. Developed in partnership with universities and specialized research centers, the first section of "Technoscape" features interactive pavilions and installations that demonstrate how scientific and technological systems intersect with contemporary architecture—ranging from smart urban management devices to the revival of low-tech, vintage assembly techniques. The second part of the exhibition turns its gaze backward and forward across the post-war era, profiling pioneering structural engineers whose contributions defined iconic global structures such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Sydney Opera House.
Andrea Branzi: Contemporary DNA
New York — Through April 2023
Italian architect Andrea Branzi, who cofounded the radical design collective Archizoom during the avant-garde movements of the 1960s, is mounting his third solo exhibition with the Friedman Benda Gallery in Chelsea. The exhibition showcases three distinct bodies of work titled Roots, Germinal Seats, and Buildings. Across these collections, Branzi places a strong emphasis on natural and reused materials, applying them to domestic household objects such as chairs, cabinets, and lighting fixtures. The works challenge conventional manufacturing standards by championing organic textures, raw structural elements, and a philosophical return to primitive forms within interior design.
Aldo Rossi. Insulae
Berlin — Through Spring 2023
The Museum of Architectural Drawing in Berlin is currently hosting an extensive showcase dedicated to the late Italian architect Aldo Rossi. Featuring over 110 works, many of which are making their public debut, the exhibition is thoughtfully organized into three thematic sections: Corpus Mediolanensis, Works for Berlin, and Insula. The final series, which gives the exhibition its title, gathers a collection of delicate drawings by Rossi that find their inspiration in architectural models and spatial typologies originating from classical antiquity, demonstrating his enduring fascination with historical form and urban memory.
Himali Singh Soin: Static Range
Chicago — Through May 15, 2023
At the Art Institute of Chicago, artist Himali Singh Soin is presenting her debut solo museum exhibition in the United States. Titled "Static Range," the multimedia installation offers an immersive, speculative look into the historical and future implications of nuclear landscapes. Designed in close collaboration with the local Chicago-based architecture practice Future Firm, the exhibition space incorporates poetry, music, video, textiles, ceramics, drawings, and an integrated therapeutic garden. Together, these elements construct a deeply atmospheric environment that asks viewers to contemplate the environmental and geopolitical legacies of nuclear technology.
François Dallegret: Beyond the Bubble
New Haven, Connecticut — Through May 22, 2023
The Yale Architecture Gallery is currently celebrating the career of Montreal-based architect François Dallegret, a prominent fixture of the 1960s and 1970s architectural avant-garde renowned for his meticulous, imaginative designs for futuristic objects and spaces. Expanding upon the foundational 2011 exhibition GOD & CO: Beyond the Bubble, the current Yale presentation draws from six decades of Dallegret’s creative output. It offers visitors a rare look at original drawings, physical objects, archival films, and historical ephemera that capture a uniquely playful yet rigorous approach to architectural experimentation.
Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design
Montreal — Through May 28, 2023
Organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design, a major exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts brings together nearly 250 works created by Canadian and American women designers from the mid-19th century to the present day. The exhibition frames these works against the social, political, and economic challenges that have continually shaped female careers in the design field over the past 150 years. The vast inventory spans artisanal crafts and industrial production, encompassing ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewelry, textiles, furniture, everyday consumer products, graphic design, fashion, and interior environments.
Retrotopia: Design for Socialist Spaces
Berlin — Through July 16, 2023
The Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin is hosting an eye-opening exhibition that examines the prolific body of work produced by architects and designers operating within the former Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. By displaying both realized projects and unbuilt conceptual proposals from behind the Iron Curtain, "Retrotopia" sheds light on numerous creative figures who remain largely unknown in the West. Notable inclusions feature the pioneering Czech architect Věra Machoninová, Estonian designers Sirje Runge and Bruno Tomberg, and German architect Lutz Brandt, highlighting how socialist designers navigated ideology, material scarcity, and modernism.
Vanishing Points: Architectural Imagination in the Digital Universe
London — Through July 29, 2023
Hosted at the Roca London Gallery and curated by architect Hamza Shaikh, this exhibition bridges historical architectural representation with cutting-edge digital creation. "Vanishing Points" places contemporary digital imaginings by modern designers in direct dialogue with historical precedents drawn from the renowned Drawing Matter archive. By exhibiting rare drawings by masters such as Mies van der Rohe, John Hejduk, and Le Corbusier alongside the outputs of advanced virtual technologies, the exhibition illustrates how contemporary digital architecture builds upon, transforms, and expands the rich lineage of architectural drawing.
Garden Futures: Designing with Nature
Weil am Rhein, Germany — Through October 3, 2023
Curated by the Milan-based design studio Formafantasma for the Vitra Design Museum, "Garden Futures" investigates the historical evolution and future trajectory of the modern garden. The exhibition positions horticulture not merely as a decorative pastime, but as a potentially radical site for ecological experimentation and cultural incubation. Spanning a broad thematic scope that addresses contemporary community gardens, building-integrated green facades, and high-tech vertical urban farms, the display features historical and contemporary contributions from landscape architects Roberto Burle Marx and Mien Ruys, alongside artist Derek Jarman.
Events
Concéntrico 09
Logroño, Spain — April 27 – May 2, 2023
The international architecture and design festival Concéntrico returns to Logroño for its ninth consecutive edition, turning the city into an open-air laboratory for urban intervention. Over six days, the festival features a diverse roster of temporary installations, pavilions, exhibitions, and public events scattered throughout the urban fabric. Participating designers and architects present conceptual proposals that interrogate, celebrate, and actively engage the public realm, encouraging citizens to rethink everyday civic spaces.
NYCxDesign
New York — May 18–25, 2023
New York City’s premier annual architecture and design celebration is back for its 11th year, drawing over 300,000 visitors, professionals, and design enthusiasts from around the globe. The festival program encompasses a vibrant citywide array of public talks, curated exhibitions, site-specific installations, and guided walking tours that highlight the immense breadth of the city’s creative industries, from boutique furniture design to large-scale urban planning initiatives.
Venice Architecture Biennale 2023
Venice, Italy — May 20 – November 26, 2023
One of the most anticipated events on the global cultural calendar, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is curated by Scottish-Ghanaian architect Lesley Lokko, founder of the Graduate School of Architecture in Johannesburg and the African Futures Institute in Accra. Titled "Laboratory of the Future," the citywide exhibition centers its focus on issues of decolonization and decarbonization, featuring contributions from 89 official participants, over half of whom hail from Africa or the African diaspora.
BQE 2053: Towards a Decarbonized Sustainable Multi-Modal Transportation Network
New York — May 20, 2023
Prompted by the recent availability of federal infrastructure funding, the Institute for Public Architecture is convening a free, one-day symposium to explore transformative reuse opportunities for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE). The aging urban highway has suffered from decades of deferred maintenance. To address its future, four distinct panels will gather at the Harbor School on Governors Island. Policy-makers, urban experts, and community advocates from Brooklyn and Queens will lead discussions addressing highway removal, alternative multi-modal transportation systems, community land trusts, and grassroots visions for the corridor’s future.
NeoCon
Chicago — June 12–14, 2023
As a foundational commercial design fixture held annually in Chicago since 1969, NeoCon continues to gather industry leaders, interior designers, and manufacturers to experience the latest innovations in commercial workplace and hospitality design. This year’s event will utilize nearly one million square feet of exhibition space at the Merchandise Mart, showcasing cutting-edge products from more than 400 exhibitors, ranging from established global corporations to boundary-pushing emerging designers.
Competitions
Architecture at Zero 2023
Submission Deadline: June 15, 2023
Presented in part by AIA California, the annual Architecture at Zero competition has launched its 2023 call for entries, inviting innovative design proposals for a new agricultural center in Allensworth, California. As the first town in the state to be independently founded, financed, and governed by African Americans, Allensworth serves as a deeply significant historical site. The competition brief challenges both architecture students and seasoned professionals to develop net-zero, highly resilient, and equitable design proposals that honor the town’s historical legacy while positioning it as a thriving modern destination for sustainable agriculture and Black history.
