As the global architecture and design community navigates a rapidly shifting urban and cultural landscape, institutions around the world are spotlighting the forces driving the field forward. From groundbreaking exhibitions celebrating emerging talent to critical explorations of housing equity, sustainable energy, and historic visual culture, the latest calendar of upcoming and ongoing events offers a comprehensive look at where architecture stands today—and where it is heading.
This year, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced a significant new exhibition series dedicated to showcasing the work of emerging architects who are redefining innovation in the built environment. The inaugural showcase highlights 12 recently completed projects across New York City, drawing on the expertise of notable architecture firms including Adjaye Associates, nArchitects, SO – IL, and RECORD’s Design Vanguard 2022 winners CO Adaptive and Only If. To bring these built works to life for gallery visitors, each project is accompanied by a newly commissioned video produced specially for the exhibition by Brooklyn-based filmmaker Hudson Lines, offering an intimate cinematic lens into contemporary urban design practice.
Beyond New York, museums, cultural centers, and institutions globally have curated a diverse array of exhibitions examining critical societal challenges, historical omissions, and avant-garde design movements.
Ongoing Exhibitions
In Dublin, Housing Unlocked remains on view through January 21, 2023, at the Science Gallery Dublin. A collaborative initiative between the Irish Architecture Foundation and the country’s housing agency, the exhibition showcases eight visionary, architect-led solutions designed to tackle pressing housing-related issues such as affordability, resiliency, density, and quality of life. Among the featured proposals is “Eco:Cube,” an innovative modular housing concept composed of interlocked cubes that can be stacked and rotated to generate a versatile array of one-, two-, three-, and four-bedroom homes. Another standout proposal, “Start Spreading the Mews,” investigates how new housing supply can be organically generated throughout parts of Ireland by exempting suburban laneways from overly stringent planning codes.
Meanwhile, in New York, the New Museum is hosting Theaster Gates: Young Lords and Their Traces through February 5, 2023. This presentation marks the first comprehensive survey exhibition of Chicago-based artist and designer Theaster Gates. Known internationally—including for his design of the 2022 Serpentine Pavilion—Gates maintains a wide-ranging interdisciplinary practice that encompasses sculptures fashioned from salvaged materials, evocative tar paintings, hand-thrown clay vessels, collaborative performances, 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 profound homage to the radical thinkers, heroic figures, and everyday icons who have profoundly shaped his hometown of Chicago and the broader American cultural fabric.
At the Center for Architecture in New York, New Practices New York is on display through February 25, 2023. The exhibition presents the achievements of AIA New York’s 2020 competition of the same name, highlighting six emerging practices that represent the cutting edge of urban design in the city: BRANDT: HAFERD, Byrany Roberts Studio, City-group, GRT Architects, New Affiliates, and ANY. Each of these firms has demonstrated an exceptional, ongoing engagement with the city and its diverse citizenry.
Across the Atlantic, 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 and curated by Berlin-based designer Matylda Cyzykowski, the exhibition explores the immense design potential of solar energy. It features work from an international collective of architects and designers—including Mária Telkes, Michael Jantzen, and the architecture firm Jessen Vollenweider—to construct a tangible, inspiring vision of a world powered entirely by solar energy.
In Atlanta, the Museum of Design Atlanta is hosting Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture through March 12, 2023. Hip-Hop Architecture represents a burgeoning design movement driven by a loosely organized network of practitioners who integrate the cultural ethos and aesthetics of hip-hop into their approaches to the built environment. Curated and designed by architect Sekou Cooke—whose work was featured in MoMA’s acclaimed 2021 exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America—the exhibition features a rich selection of work spanning the past 25 years, ranging from experimental installations and building designs to comprehensive urban development proposals that together offer a collective vision for alternative forms of architectural expression.
Washington, D.C., is currently home to A Better Way Home: The Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, on view at the National Building Museum through May 8, 2023. This exhibition highlights the compelling stories and innovative strategies behind the six winning entries of the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, a nationwide call to action initiated in 2019 to address the severe housing affordability crisis sweeping the United States. Backed by a $20 million grant competition that asked participants how to break down systemic barriers to ensure equitable access to stable, affordable homes, the exhibition presents six transformative solutions spanning three key categories: resident services and support, innovative financing, and advanced construction methodologies.
Rounding out the current exhibition calendar in New York is Deconstructing Power: W.E.B. Du Bois at the 1900 World’s Fair, on view at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum 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 students at the University of Atlanta produced a remarkable series of data visualizations documenting the social and economic status of African-Americans following emancipation. Although this display occupied more than a quarter of the space allocated to the United States at the fair, it was largely ignored by the mainstream American press at the time. Today, Du Bois’s long-overlooked contributions are brought into dialogue with the broader history of the fair, casting light on the profound disparities in the record and memory of the World’s Fair as a global spectacle of progress.
Events
Looking toward upcoming live gatherings, the global design calendar features several major destinations for professionals and enthusiasts alike.
In Sweden, the Stockholm Furniture Fair 2023 is scheduled for February 7 through 11, 2023. As Scandinavia’s largest design fair and a foundational destination for exploring Nordic design innovations, the event returns to the capital city in person for the first time in two years. This year’s iteration features a newly established exhibition space designed to forge a seamless connection between the Stockholmsmässan trade fair and Stockholm Design Week, which runs concurrently throughout the city in February.
In Southern California, Modernism Week 2023 will return to Palm Springs from February 16 through 26, 2023. This annual celebration of Midcentury Modern design and architecture will feature more than 350 individual events spread across various iconic locations throughout the city, including exclusive home and garden tours, documentary film screenings, and expert-led lectures. Highlighting the 2023 program is a special keynote presentation delivered by Morphosis principal Thom Mayne.
Competitions
For emerging designers looking to make their mark, the Architectural League has officially launched its Architectural League Prize 2023, centered on the theme "Uncomfortable."
Operating against the backdrop of escalating climate change, evolving labor practices, and the challenging of traditional power hegemonies, the organization is actively seeking proposals that critically respond to this pervasive state of discomfort. The competition is open to practitioners who are not current students and who have graduated with a bachelor’s or master’s degree within the past 10 years. Entrants may submit projects in any medium, whether strictly conceptual or fully realized, with winners receiving a cash prize of $2,000. The submission deadline is February 15, 2023.
