As the architectural landscape continues to adapt to pressing societal, environmental, and cultural shifts, cultural institutions around the globe are highlighting the forward-thinking practices, radical histories, and emerging voices defining the field today. From prominent museum surveys celebrating trailblazing artists to international biennials exploring renewable energy and grassroots housing solutions, this month’s lineup of exhibitions, major events, and competitions offers a comprehensive look at the intersection of architecture, community, and design.
Leading the curatorial calendar this year, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has launched a brand-new exhibition series dedicated to showcasing work from emerging architects who are pushing the boundaries of innovation within the discipline. The inaugural showcase highlights 12 recently completed projects located throughout New York City. The participant roster features notable architecture firms such as Adjaye Associates, nArchitects, and SO – IL, alongside recognized talent from RECORD’s Design Vanguard 2022 program, including CO Adaptive and Only If. To provide a richer viewing experience for museumgoers, each architectural project is accompanied by a newly commissioned video produced specifically for the exhibition by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Hudson Lines.
Beyond MoMA’s new initiative, museums, cultural centers, and institutions worldwide are hosting ongoing exhibitions that dive deeply into the most critical challenges facing contemporary cities and communities.
Ongoing Exhibitions
In Dublin, the Science Gallery Dublin is currently hosting Housing Unlocked, an insightful exhibition running through January 21, 2023. Developed as a collaborative initiative between the Irish Architecture Foundation and the country’s housing agency, the showcase presents eight innovative, architect-led solutions designed to tackle complex urban and domestic issues such as affordability, resiliency, spatial density, and overall quality of life. Among the featured proposals is the "Eco:Cube," a modular housing concept built from interlocked cubes that can be efficiently stacked and rotated to generate a wide variety of one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom homes. Another standout proposal, titled "Start Spreading the Mews," examines how local authorities can generate much-needed new housing supply across Ireland simply by exempting suburban laneways from overly stringent planning codes.
In New York City, the New Museum is presenting Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces, the first comprehensive museum survey of the celebrated Chicago-based artist and designer Theaster Gates. Gates, who designed the 2022 Serpentine Pavilion, is widely recognized for an interdisciplinary practice that seamlessly bridges art, architecture, and social engagement. The exhibition features sculptures crafted from salvaged materials, profound tar paintings, intricate clay vessels, collaborative performance documentation, preserved historical photographs and artifacts, and large-scale architectural installations. Curated by the museum’s artistic director, Massimiliano Gioni, alongside Gary Carrion-Murayari, the exhibition brings together a curated selection of Gates’s work that pays direct homage to the radical thinkers, heroic figures, and everyday icons who have profoundly shaped his home city of Chicago and the broader national consciousness. The exhibition remains on view through February 5, 2023.
Also in New York, the Center for Architecture is hosting New Practices New York through February 25, 2023. The exhibition displays the realized and conceptual work stemming from AIA New York’s 2020 competition of the same name. Six distinct practices were selected by the jury to represent the next generation of innovative design firms operating within the metropolis: BRANDT: HAFERD, Byrony Roberts Studio, City-group, GRT Architects, New Affiliates, and ANY. Each of these practices has demonstrated a deep, sustained engagement with the urban fabric of the city and its diverse citizens.
Shifting focus toward renewable resources and ecological futures, Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut is presenting The Energy Show—Sun, Solar, and Human Power through March 4, 2023. Organized as part of the city’s inaugural Solar Biennale, the exhibition explores the immense design potential and practical applications of solar power. Curated by Berlin-based designer Matylda Cyzykowski, the showcase features contributions from an international collective of architects and designers—including pioneering figures like Mária Telkes and Michael Jantzen, alongside the architecture firm Jessen Vollenweider—to construct a compelling and tangible vision of a future world entirely powered by solar energy.
In Atlanta, the Museum of Design Atlanta is examining the profound cultural influence of a burgeoning design philosophy through Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture, on view through March 12, 2023. Hip-Hop Architecture represents a growing design movement driven by a loosely organized network of creators who integrate the ethos, rhythms, and spatial interpretations of hip-hop into their approaches to the built environment. Curated and designed by architect Sekou Cooke—whose influential work was also featured in MoMA’s acclaimed 2021 exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America—the exhibition features a curated selection of projects spanning the past 25 years. The works range from experimental installations to visionary building designs and large-scale urban-development proposals, collectively presenting an alternative framework for architectural expression and community practice.
In Washington, D.C., the National Building Museum is highlighting grassroots ingenuity through A Better Way Home: The Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, running through May 8, 2023. The exhibition tells the stories and details the strategies behind the six winning ideas of the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, a nationwide call to action initiated in 2019 to combat the acute housing-affordability crisis sweeping the United States. Funded by a $20 million grant competition, participants were tasked with answering a fundamental question: How can we break down systemic barriers to ensure everyone has access to an affordable home where they can live and thrive? The exhibition showcases six proposed solutions split evenly across three critical categories: resident services and support, innovative financing, and modern construction methods, all challenging traditional American housing paradigms.
Meanwhile, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York is presenting a vital historical reassessment through Deconstructing Power: W.E.B. Du Bois at the 1900 World’s Fair, on view through May 29, 2023. As part of The American Negro Exhibit at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, W.E.B. Du Bois and his talented students at the University of Atlanta produced a remarkable series of data visualizations illustrating the social and economic progress, as well as the ongoing struggles, of African Americans following emancipation. Although this historic display occupied more than a quarter of the total space allocated to the United States at the international exposition, it was largely ignored by the mainstream American press of the era. Today, Du Bois’s long-overlooked contributions are brought into direct dialogue with the broader events of the fair, critically highlighting the profound disparities found within the historical record and the collective memory of world’s fairs as traditional spectacles of Western progress.
Events
The cultural calendar also features major international gatherings for design professionals and enthusiasts. The Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023 is scheduled to take place from February 7 to February 11, 2023. As Scandinavia’s largest design fair and a longstanding destination for discovering cutting-edge regional design, the event returns to the Swedish capital’s physical exhibition spaces for the first time in two years. This year’s iteration features a newly designed exhibition space specifically intended to forge a seamless physical and conceptual connection between the Stockholmsmässan trade fair and Stockholm Design Week, which runs concurrently across the city throughout February.
In Southern California, the annual celebration of midcentury modernism, Modernism Week 2023, will run from February 16 to February 26, 2023. Centered in Palm Springs, the festival encompasses more than 350 individual events scattered across various architecturally significant locations throughout the region, including exclusive home and garden tours, documentary screenings, and expert-led lectures. The keynote presentation for this year’s gathering will be delivered by Thom Mayne, principal of the renowned architecture firm Morphosis.
Competitions
For emerging designers looking to make their mark, the Architectural League has announced its annual open call for the Architectural League Prize 2023, bearing the thematic title Uncomfortable. Operating against the complex backdrop of accelerating climate change, evolving labor practices, and the continuous challenge of traditional professional hegemonies, the competition seeks innovative proposals that actively respond to the pervasive state of discomfort felt across contemporary practice.
Applicants must not be current students and must have graduated with a bachelor’s or master’s degree within the last 10 years. The competition accepts submissions in any creative or technical medium, encompassing both purely conceptual frameworks and fully realized built projects. Winners of the prestigious competition will each receive a cash prize of $2,000. Further information and submission guidelines can be found through the Architectural League’s official portal.
