THE OTHER ARCHITECT at Het Nieuwe Instituut

07/09/2017. [Rotterdam] The Netherlands 8.09.2017 > 7.01.2018
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA

In collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), Het Nieuwe Instituut presents The Other Architect, an exhibition of architects who expanded their role in society to shape the contemporary cultural agenda without the intervention of built form. It showcases architecture’s potential to identify the urgent issues of our time, featuring 22 case studies, dating from the 1960s to the present day, that illustrate how international and often multidisciplinary groups invented and adopted new methods outside of traditional design practices. The Other Architect is a touring exhibition organized by the CCA and will be on view in Rotterdam from 8 September 2017 until 7 January 2018.

THE OTHER ARCHITECT at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

THE OTHER ARCHITECT at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

AMO. A diagram showing how OMA and AMO implanted themselves into relationships within real and virtual spheres. 2001 © OMA. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

Cedric Price and Frank Newby’s collection of promotional and documentary photographs of pneumatic structures and their components. Date unknown © CCA / Lightweight Enclosures Unit, Cedric Price fonds. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

An improvised drawing (“D.I.Y. tool box”) made at the Sambuca Seminar, 1974 © Alessandro Mendini / Archivio Piero Brombin e Valerio Tridenti. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

Coded index cards used to assemble the ‘Air Structures Bibliography’ rating each publication according to its usefulness, 1972 © CCA / Lightweight Enclosures Unit, Cedric Price fonds. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

Collage, The Other Architect, 2015 © Christian Lange. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

Drawing of the bus tour circuit indicating participating architecture schools and their potential connections, 1973 © Peter Murray / AD/AA/Polyark. Cedric Price fonds, CCA. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

Collage, The Other Architect, 2015 © Christian Lange. Image courtesy Het Nieuwe Instituut

The Other Architect, running at Het Nieuwe Instituut and curated by Giovanna Borasi, CCA Chief Curator, explores how various groups pushed beyond traditional architectural practice to develop architecture as a field of energetic, critical, and radical research, outside the established domains of academia and the usual dynamics of editorial and institutional activities. They sought to expand the role and responsibility of architects in society by working outside of traditional design practices and pursuing collaborative strategies, new tools and experimental attitudes. Their ingenuity showed the ability of architecture to shape the contemporary cultural agenda, a lesson that remains critically relevant today.

These alternative working methods and strategies manifested in a range of forms including mission statements, manifestos, videos, photographs, meeting minutes and Tshirts. The archival documents on display reveal how architects constructed a cultural agenda without the intervention of built form. Tracing the development of these unusual creative processes allows us to consider how these different ways of defining architecture can be applied today.

The Other Architect presents architects whose work challenged the concept of individual authorship in favour of establishing networks and partnerships with permeable roles. These include

AD/AA/Polyark, AMO, Anyone Corporation, Architects Revolutionary Council (ARC), Architectural Detective Agency (ADA), Architecture Machine Group (AMG), Art Net, Atelier de recherche et d’action urbaines (ARAU), Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), CIRCO, Corridart, Delos Symposion, Design-AThon, Forensic Architecture, Global Tools, Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD), Kommunen in der Neuen Welt, Lightweight Enclosures Unit (LEU), Pidgeon Audio Visual (PAV), Take Part, and Urban Innovations Group (UIG).

The exhibition was first on view at the CCA in 2015 and is accompanied by a publication, The Other Architect, edited by Giovanna Borasi, published by the CCA with Spector Books, and designed by Jonathan Hares.