As the architectural world continues to grapple with shifting global paradigms—ranging from the urgent demands of the climate emergency to the rapidly expanding frontiers of the digital universe—cultural institutions, galleries, and public spaces worldwide are rolling out an ambitious slate of programming. RECORD’s monthly roundup highlights the most compelling upcoming and ongoing exhibitions, major international festivals, and high-profile design competitions that are shaping contemporary discourse across architecture, engineering, and the built environment.
Upcoming Exhibitions
The spring and summer seasons feature a diverse array of foundational retrospectives and forward-looking explorations of the built environment. Among the most anticipated openings is More with Less: Reimagining Architecture for a Changing World, running from April 22 through September 10, 2023, in Newcastle, England. Housed in a former 19th-century department store, the Farrell Centre—a newly established public exhibition space and research hub dedicated to architecture and urbanism led by British architect Sir Terry Farrell—is launching its inaugural exhibition with a clear and urgent mandate. The center invited four distinct architectural practices: Dress for the Weather, McCloy + Muchemwa, Office S&M, and the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment. Each practice has been tasked with creating site-specific installations that propose radical new design responses to the escalating climate emergency, offering visitors a glimpse into how material reuse and biotechnology might define the future of construction.
Meanwhile, in Paris, the Centre Pompidou is set to host the largest retrospective ever dedicated to the prolific, six-decade career of Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate Norman Foster. Running from May 10 through August 7, 2023, and occupying a sweeping 23,000-square-foot gallery space, the exhibition offers unprecedented access to the inner workings of one of the world’s most renowned architectural minds. Visitors can examine original drawings, personal workbooks, and intricate physical prototypes spanning nearly 100 projects from the past sixty years. Key highlights of the retrospective include seminal works such as the Carré d’Art in Nîmes, France, completed in 1993; the monumental Hong Kong International Airport, opened in 1998; and the sleek, futuristic Apple Park in Cupertino, California, finalized in 2017.
Ongoing Exhibitions
Beyond these upcoming events, a rich tapestry of ongoing exhibitions continues to draw crowds and provoke critical dialogue across global cultural capitals. In Rome, the Museo Nazionale MAXXI is hosting Technoscape: The Architecture of Engineers through April 16, 2023. This comprehensive exhibition investigates the deep, complex relationship between structural engineering—spanning both vernacular traditions and avant-garde innovations—and the increasing integration of technology into everyday operating and living spaces. Developed in collaboration with academic institutions and research centers, the exhibition is divided into two distinct parts. The first section features immersive installations and interactive pavilions that allow visitors to experience firsthand the role that modern scientific and technological sectors play in contemporary architecture, ranging from "smart" urban management devices to the strategic revival of low-tech, vintage assembly techniques. The second part traces the trajectory of structural engineering from the post-war era to the present day, celebrating monumental engineering feats behind iconic structures such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Sydney Opera House.
In New York City, Italian architect and radical design pioneer Andrea Branzi—who cofounded the influential radical architecture and design studio Archizoom in the 1960s—is presenting his third solo exhibition with the Friedman Benda Gallery in Chelsea. The exhibition showcases three distinct new bodies of work by Branzi, titled Roots, Germinal Seats, and Buildings. Across these collections, the architect places a profound emphasis on natural, raw, and reused materials applied to domestic household objects, including innovative designs for chairs, cabinets, and lamps that challenge traditional notions of interior space and consumer goods.
Across the Atlantic in Berlin, the Museum of Architectural Drawing is presenting Aldo Rossi. Insulae, an exhibition dedicated to the late Italian architect that displays over 110 works, many of which are being shared with the general public for the very first time. The show is structured into three thematic sections: Corpus Mediolanensis, Works for Berlin, and Insula. The final series, which gives the exhibition its title, features a captivating collection of drawings by Rossi directly inspired by architectural models and typologies from classical antiquity.
In Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago is hosting Himali Singh Soin: Static Range through May 15, 2023, marking the artist’s first solo exhibition in the United States. Soin presents a deeply immersive and imaginative exploration of the history and future of "nuclear" landscapes. The multimedia exhibition weaves together poetry, original music, video, textiles, ceramics, drawings, and even a therapeutic garden. The physical exhibition space was meticulously designed by the artist in close collaboration with the local Chicago-based architecture office Future Firm, creating an evocative environment that bridges fine art and spatial design.
In New Haven, Connecticut, the Yale Architecture Gallery is presenting François Dallegret: Beyond the Bubble through May 22, 2023. Montreal-based architect François Dallegret emerged as a central figure of the architectural avant-garde during the 1960s and 1970s, celebrated for his meticulous, whimsical designs for futuristic objects and spaces. Building upon the foundational 2011 exhibition GOD & CO: Beyond the Bubble, the current Yale exhibition brings together rare drawings, physical objects, films, and historical ephemera drawn from six decades of Dallegret’s prolific and boundary-pushing practice.
In Montreal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is staging a major, large-scale exhibition titled Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design through May 28, 2023. Organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design, the exhibition gathers close to 250 works created by American and Canadian women designers, dating from the mid-19th century to the present day. The works are contextualized against the shifting social and political backdrops that have profoundly shaped the careers of women designers over the past 150 years. The vast inventory includes everything from artisanal craft to cutting-edge industrial design, spanning ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewelry, textiles, furniture, consumer products, graphics, fashion, and interior environments.
In Berlin, the Museum of Decorative Arts is exploring a largely overlooked chapter of design history through Retrotopia: Design for Socialist Spaces, on view through July 16, 2023. The exhibition examines the rich body of work produced by architects and designers operating within the former Eastern Bloc during the height of the Cold War. By displaying both realized projects and visionary, unbuilt conceptual spaces imagined by creators from behind the Iron Curtain, the exhibition brings much-deserved visibility to figures who remain relatively unknown in the Western world. Among them are Czech architect Věra Machoninová, Estonian designers Sirje Runge and Bruno Tomberg, and German architect Lutz Brandt.
In London, the Roca London Gallery is hosting Vanishing Points: Architectural Imagination in the Digital Universe through July 29, 2023. Curated by architect Hamza Shaikh, the exhibition places contemporary architectural imaginings created using advanced virtual technologies into a compelling dialogue with historical precedents sourced from the renowned Drawing Matter archive. By displaying rare drawings by architectural masters such as Mies van der Rohe, John Hejduk, and Le Corbusier side-by-side with cutting-edge digital products, the exhibition demonstrates how contemporary virtual architecture directly inherits, follows, and expands upon the profession’s deep-rooted drawing traditions.
Rounding out the museum programming in Weil am Rhein, Germany, the Vitra Design Museum is presenting Garden Futures: Designing with Nature through October 3, 2023. Designed by the Milan-based studio Formafantasma, the exhibition explores the fascinating history and evolving future of the modern garden, arguing that horticulture should be viewed as a potentially radical site for spatial experimentation and ecological incubation. Encompassing a broad scope of inquiry that touches on contemporary community gardens, sprawling green facades, and high-tech vertical urban farms, the exhibition features historical and contemporary work by visionary landscape architects Roberto Burle Marx and Mien Ruys, as well as artist Derek Jarman.
Events
The calendar for live architectural events and festivals this season offers rich opportunities for public engagement, professional networking, and global discourse. In Spain, the city of Logroño is preparing to host the ninth iteration of the annual architecture and design festival, Concéntrico 09, from April 27 through May 2, 2023. Over six days, the festival will activate the urban fabric with a diverse roster of temporary public installations, exhibitions, and events designed to provoke new conversations about the public realm and civic life.
In the United States, New York City will welcome back NYCxDesign for its 11th consecutive year from May 18 to 25, 2023. The premier architecture and design festival routinely attracts over 300,000 visitors from around the globe to explore a dynamic calendar of public talks, immersive exhibits, neighborhood installations, and guided walking tours that celebrate the city’s vibrant creative community.
On the international stage, the highly anticipated 18th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale opens its doors from May 20 through November 26, 2023. This year’s Biennale is curated by Scottish-Ghanaian architect Lesley Lokko, who founded the Graduate School of Architecture in Johannesburg in 2015 and the African Futures Institute in Accra, Ghana, in 2020. Operating under the overarching theme "Laboratory of the Future," the citywide exhibition features contributions from 89 official participants, with more than half hailing from Africa or the African diaspora, signaling a profound geographical and cultural shift in global architectural discourse.
Closer to local infrastructure policy in New York, the Institute for Public Architecture is hosting a free, one-day symposium titled BQE 2053: Towards a Decarbonized Sustainable Multi-Modal Transportation Network on May 20, 2023. Taking advantage of newly available federal funding for infrastructure repair, the symposium will address the pressing reuse opportunities for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE), a vital urban corridor that has steadily deteriorated due to decades of deferred maintenance. Four distinct panels will convene at the Harbor School on Governors Island to debate critical topics including highway removal, alternative transportation networks, community land trusts, and grassroots visions for the corridor’s future, led by a coalition of policy-makers, transportation experts, and community leaders from Brooklyn and Queens.
In Chicago, the commercial design industry will gather for the annual NeoCon trade fair from June 12 to 14, 2023. Established in 1969, NeoCon remains a cornerstone event for industry professionals seeking to experience the latest innovations in commercial interior design. This year’s event will span nearly one million square feet of exhibition space, showcasing products and conceptual prototypes from more than 400 exhibitors, encompassing both established market leaders and emerging designers.
Competitions
For designers and students looking to put their theoretical frameworks into practice, the Architecture at Zero 2023 competition presents a timely and socially charged challenge, with submissions due by June 15, 2023. Presented in part by AIA California, the competition is actively seeking innovative design proposals for an agricultural center in Allensworth, California—historic as the first town in the state to be independently founded, financed, and governed by African Americans. With a strong emphasis on decarbonization, social equity, and environmental resilience, the competition brief invites students and professionals alike to develop designs that honor, recognize, and actively advance the site’s enduring aspiration to become a thriving regional destination for sustainable agriculture and Black history.
