Museum, Materials and Discussions. Journal of Museum Studies

Archives, Art, and Architecture at MAXXI: Interview with Luca Galofaro

2024-03-26T11:18:51+01:00

For this column dedicated to architecture and display topics, in the thematic dossier of the first issue of MMD, the decision was made to interview with Luca Galofaro, architect and curator of the exhibition Architettura a regola d’arte, held at the MAXXI in Rome from December 7th 2022, through to October 15th, 2023.

“Institution Building” at CIVA: Experimenting with Institutional Critique Through Architectural Exhibition

2024-03-26T14:04:58+01:00

Despite the rising interest in the production of institutional histories, the field of institutional critique applied to the contemporary architectural institution is still an emerging framework of research and debate, both inside and outside this specific category of cultural institution. Due to the dominantly projective nature of the architectural institution, its critique tends to associate with and translate into proactive attempts at reimagining and rebuilding the institution. Institutional critique thus merges in the architectural context with the idea of the blueprint and the manifesto, and it is articulated in often collaborative and experimental formats. Through the exploration of the architectural exhibition “Institution Building” organized by the CIVA of Bruxelles in 2021, this article aims to analyze the use of the exhibition as a methodology for proposing a critique of the architectural institution, and to reflect on its effectiveness as a means to produce and mediate a critical discourse around the organization, functioning, and operations of the architectural institution.

Exhibited ecology. On Taking the country’s side

2024-03-26T14:18:16+01:00

To cope with the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness induced by the environmental crisis nowadays, architecture exhibitions dealing with the themes of ecology and sustainability can play a fundamental role in building a collective consciousness that could help people manage or, at least, understand contemporary ecological issues.

Against this background, this article discusses the case of the exhibition Taking the Country’s Side: Agriculture and Architecture by architecture theorist Sébastien Marot, which is analyzed through the study of its evolution as well as through the reconstruction of the curator’s thought.

Socks Studio and the Digital through the Lens of architectural Discipline. Talks with Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli

2024-03-26T13:47:02+01:00

In light of the first MMD's issue, the column dedicated to digital for museums presents an essay about Socks: the web project conceived by Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarlli. Socks was created as a digital archive and currently represents a web platform capable of combining research and architectural practice with original contributions by its authors.

Exhibited Thoughts of Architecture

2024-03-26T12:23:19+01:00

In recent decades, architecture exhibitions have become the subject of a specific study, as corroborated by the international diffusion of conferences and publications dedicated to this theme. Several essays discuss the relationship between architecture on display and publics, and the need to adapt the specific language of the discipline to support processes of presentation of architecture in its innumerable declinations. The essay originates from these inquiries, with the aim to stimulate wide-ranging reflections on the importance of architecture exhibitions in the general historical-artistic and social framework, allowing us to identify some possible forms that architecture display has taken over time, as well as to frame the architecture exhibition as a relevant event in the definition of possible architectural histories, and to interpret it as a tool capable of disseminating design practice and research.

Convincing the public: Louis-Auguste Boileau’s exhibitions and their media coverage

2024-03-26T12:56:43+01:00

In the 19th century, the Salon offered artists a major opportunity to build their reputation. Architect Louis-Auguste Boileau participated nine times between 1849 and 1893, certainly hoping, through his repeated presence, to give visibility to his work. Presenting one’s work in the Salon was nonetheless a risky venture, for while it enhanced the exhibitor’s prominence, it also left them vulnerable to criticism from the public and the press. Strategies were therefore devised to overcome the difficulties of accessing the Salon or to limit the impact of unfavourable opinions. In addition to the Salons, Boileau chose to exhibit his work at home and in a shop. The study of his varied exhibition practices thus sheds light on the processes that contribute to building reputation in the architectural milieu of the second half of the century.

Piano, Rogers and Hulten for the museum layout of the Centre Pompidou. From the empty loft to the vernacular village of art

2024-03-26T13:09:05+01:00

The Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou was born out of a desire to reduce architecture to a sequence of empty and internally unobstructed platforms: the manifesto of a kind of democratic, creative and constantly evolving space. Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini and Ove Arup & Partners offered these platforms to the Parisians with the idea of designing an anti-museum, where the works of art could be arranged according to the free and creative will of the users, but eventually downgraded behind an audio-visual envelope capable to turn the Centre into a new kind of cultural institution oriented on the emission of counterculture information. Resorting to previously unpublished archive records and interviews, this contribution traces for the first time the complex evolution of the first display for the works of arts of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, from Piano+Rogers Architects’ dream of suspended diaphragms for the celebration of a continuous space, to Pontus Hulten’s vision of making that kind of loft a a mimetic and vernacular device, inspired by the images of the village and its huts and then of the city and its boutiques.

From the exhibition of architecture to spatial practices. The shows at ar/ge kunst, Bolzano (1992-2019)

2024-03-26T13:26:11+01:00

This text is the result of an archival research conducted consulting the records of ar/ge kunst, the Kunstverein of Bolzano, where, among others, several architecture exhibitions have been presented over the last 35 years. From the very beginning, the founders chose to work on the different languages of contemporaneity, integrating in the visual arts program of the small space further disciplines like architecture, among others. Regarding the presentation of architecture, the focus of the different artistic directors of the space moved throughout the years from traditional architectural exhibitions to the display of works that understand the relation with space in a more extended way. Some of ar/ge kunst’s exhibitions are introduced here as examples in order to address issues, such as architecture, its exhibition and the spaces of its narration. The aim is to highlight the relationship between the display of architecture and the form taken by the exposition design. How does the contents of the exhibition influence its setting? In these lines there is no ambition to exhaustively list and describe the possibilities of narrating architecture through exhibitions nor the role played by their design. Instead, the purpose of this analysis is to identify some possible forms of architecture exposition, and to intersect a genealogy of recent architecture exhibitions. ar/ge kunst seems to be a useful case study in this context because it allows to explore a phenomenon, which is broad and elusive at the same time, studying some examples that are concrete and comparable since they have been hosted by the same institution.

Pull out a chair. OFFICE in Venice

2024-03-26T13:36:49+01:00

Fifteen years ago, the architects of OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen participated in two editions of the Venice Architecture Biennale, in 2008 in the Belgian pavilion, and in 2010 in the People Meet in Architecture exhibition, curated by Kazuyo Sejima. The meanings of these interventions – the way they exhibited thoughts concerning architecture – are examined in this text. In 2008, 1907…After the Party put the Belgian pavilion itself on display, enclosing the historic building and separating it from the Biennale by means of a wall. Confetti, scattered both inside and outside, added layers of meaning to this ‘installation’, which can be interpreted as a reflection on both the architectural exhibition and on the state of architecture in the 21st century. Similarly, the smaller, more traditional Garden Pavilion (7 rooms, 21 perspectives) exhibition in 2010 was an opportunity to create a new space for architecture culture, within the machinery of the Venice Biennale.

Exhibition as Site of Transgression: An Interview with Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti (DAAR - Decolonizing Architecture Art Research)

2024-03-26T10:46:52+01:00

In light of the thematic dossier presented in the inaugural issue of MMD, this section dedicated to experience and publics features an interview with architects Sandi Hilal and Alessandro Petti, founders of DAAR – Decolonizing Architecture Art Research.

Form as Thought

2024-03-26T13:55:34+01:00

As former chief curator of the fifth Lisbon Triennial of architecture in 2019, I will first discuss about utility of such events to allow architecture to meet a wider audience as the academic or professional ones. This issue is also about form of such events in terms of overall organizations: didactic exhibitions conceived by curators vs. conceptual installations made by architects. I will explain why I chose the first option in Lisbon, and how this choice influenced the form of the exhibitions. Additionally, I will explore in which way the fact that I was an “intellectual practitioner” allowed me to give specific answers to a series of questions regarding architecture itself but as well the art of exhibition: in which way form can improve thought.