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In partnership with AIA New York, the Center for Architecture offers tours of its rotating exhibitions on a wide range of topics in architecture and design.

Since its opening in 2003, the Center for Architecture has partnered with independent curators, city agencies, non-profit organizations, cultural institutions, and private companies to create exhibitions that attract diverse audiences and influence how the public experiences architecture and design.

Exhibition tours can offer opportunities for the general public or private groups to engage with New York City’s built environment. Questions? Please reach out to our Exhibitions and Programs team here.

See Calendar

Exhibition Programs

Thu, Apr 25 6:00 pm

Rezoning: At What Cost? By Tatiana Lahera Kalainoff

Free

Leroy Street Studio is pleased to announce the opening of “Rezoning: At What Cost?” by Tatiana Lahera Kalainoff. Please join us for an after hours reception on Thursday, April 25th from 6–9pm to celebrate! The work will be on view through June 30th.

Gowanus, a Brooklyn neighborhood, has undergone massive changes due to the approval of the neighborhood’s rezoning in November 2021. Over those two years, many buildings have been demolished, and numerous pits have been excavated to make way for new residential structures. The neighborhood has become unrecognizable. The future landscape of Gowanus serves as just one example of the aftermath that more neighborhoods in Brooklyn are currently or likely to be facing soon.

Public policy is often challenging to decipher and remains hidden from the people it impacts most. “Rezoning: At What Cost?” transforms previously incomprehensible data into physical form while also providing necessary spatial context to truly understand the data’s implications. Users can explore and learn about the data themselves, coming to their own understanding about what it all means. By inviting users to engage with a physical representation of the data, “Rezoning: At What Cost?” begins to rebuild a connection between people and policy.

The map of Gowanus presents a future snapshot with all residential buildings currently permitted for construction since the rezoning. Each residential building consists of colored acrylic floors depicting percentages of market-rate and affordable housing, forming stacked bar charts scaled to the height of each building. Users can tangibly interact with the data by removing floors from buildings and rearranging them for their own personal exploration. Additional contextual information can be found in an accompanying zine, which also serves as a worksheet to help users discover how they may or may not fit within the NYC affordable housing system. Lastly, users are encouraged to fill out reflective question cards about their experience and their thoughts on the future of rezoning and affordable housing. The cards are collectively displayed as a grid behind the map.

This piece was created as part of NYC’s Open Data Week 2024 for Data Through Design’s exhibition Aftermath. It visualizes NYC Open Data from the Department of City Planning and the Housing and Preservation Department.

Thu, May 2 5:30 pm

Spring Exhibitions Opening Night

AIANY Member: Free
Student with Valid ID: Free
General Public: Free

Please join us for the opening night celebration of three exhibitions—Spatializing Reproductive Justice, Constructing Hope: Ukraine, and AIANY 2024 Design Awards—that will be on view at the Center for Architecture from May 2–September 3, 2024. The evening will include remarks from each exhibition team as well as mingling and light refreshments!

Spatializing Reproductive Justice is a traveling exhibition and programming series that aims to spread awareness of the inequities of reproductive care in the United States and the agency of design fields to expand access. Learning from past and present reproductive and sexual health justice movements, the project addresses the spatial, legal, and social logistics of reproductive healthcare access in the United States after the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
Curators: Lori Brown, FAIA, Lindsay Harkema, and Bryony Roberts with FLUFFFF Studio
Graphic Designer: FLUFFFF Studio

Constructing Hope: Ukraine presents the work of over a dozen participants currently applying architectural thinking to support Ukraine’s short- and long-term reconstruction efforts. In the face of Russia’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine—a war that has destroyed and existentially threatened Ukrainians’ lives, ecology, culture, and infrastructure—these multidisciplinary creatives regain agency over their environment by employing architectural strategies and practices as a form of resistance. Showcasing their work and ideas, Constructing Hope: Ukraine reveals the power of collaboration, horizontal organizing, and knowledge exchange, illuminating architecture’s critical role in building a collective resistance that can generate hope for imperiled communities in Ukraine and beyond.
Curators: Ashley Bigham, Betty Roytburd, Sasha Topolnytska
Graphic Designer: Aliona Solomadina

The AIANY 2024 Design Awards features Honor, Merit, and Citation recipients in the categories of Architecture, Interiors, Projects, and Urban Design. Selected from among nearly 200 entries, the 22 winning projects range from temporary installations and exhibitions to large-scale urban interventions. Thirteen of the 22 winners are projects in New York State. One single winning project is outside the US in Quebec, Canada, while the remaining domestic awardees span Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia.
Graphic Designer: Pacific

 

Sat, May 4 6:00 pm

Art at Work: A Sanitation and Social Practice Group Show

Free

Art at Work is a group exhibition of works by artists-in-residence at municipal sanitation departments in four different US cities, including New York. In these remarkable programs, cities invite artists to hang out at the dump and make work about and alongside the waste stream and its workers. Drawing on the histories and discourses of discard studies, the environmental humanities, and social practice art, Art at Work and its supplemental materials seeks to confront questions about the civic responsibilities of artists and of art itself, and reflect an evolving aesthetics of environmentalism. Featuring Lily Cox-Richard, Brian Hutsebout, Kimberly Lakin, sTo Len, Cathy Lu, Hilary Pfeifer, Francesca Pfister, Slinko, Mike Suri and Mierle Laderman Ukeles.