With Labor Day behind us it’s time to look forward to fall. AN editors have rounded up the exhibitions and design fairs to check out this autumn. The comprehensive list includes a retrospective on Paul Rudolph, furniture and design shows at R & Company and The Future Perfect, as well as research-focused exhibitions on view at architecture schools across the country.
CCA: Reading Landscapes
1920 Baile Street
Montreal, Quebec
Through February 16, 2025
Composed of a small selection of books from the CCA collection, Reading Landscapes explores the constantly shifting concept of landscape and the ways landscapes have been imagined and represented through published media.
CCA: Into the Island
Main Galleries
1920 Baile Street
Montreal, Quebec
Through November 17
Into the Island is the first chapter of the CCA’s three-part film and exhibition series, Groundwork. The series explores a narrative through the eyes of architect Xu Tiantian and her encounter with the fluctuating landscape of her hometown Putian.
CCA: madskills: Self-Documenting Construction on Social Media
Octagonal Galleries
Through October 20
The exhibition, madskills: Self-Documenting Construction on Social Media brings into question the emergence of construction videos and images on social media. Juxtaposing these images with items from the CCA collection, this exhibition explores material culture and its evolution.
Welcome to Tribuneville: An Imaginary Vision of an Old Chicago That Could Have Been
MAS Context
1564 North Damen Ave, Suite 204
Chicago
Through December 30
MAS Context and 150 Media Stream co-present a 150-foot by 22-foot installation of LED screens consisting of highly detailed drawings of a retro-futuristic cityscape created by the architectural cartoonist Klaus.
The New Magnificent: Visions to Renew and Reconnect the Mag Mile
Chicago Architecture Center (CAC), First Floor Lobby Area
111 East Wacker Drive
Chicago
Through November 16
In this pop-up exhibition, two design proposals are presented for improving the economic vitality and experience of Magnificent Mile, a stretch of the large Michigan Avenue boulevard in Chicago populated with skyscrapers and prominent retailers.
Le Corbusier LC150+ Exhibit at The University of Texas at Arlington
Max Sullivan Gallery of UTA’s College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs
601 West Nedderman Drive
Arlington, Texas
Through September 20
The exhibition LC150+ stands for 150-plus models of works by Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, featured in Singapore-based RT+Q Architects’s private collection. Included are models of some of his most iconic buildings from the 1920s and his unique contributions to modern architecture.
Tumbados by Guadalupe Rosales and Lokey Calderon
97 Kenmare Street
New York
Through August 1, 2025
Tumbados, is a long-term public artwork at Storefront for Art and Architecture that challenges the criminalization of traditional Chicanx art by constructing a space that recontextualizes, reclaims, celebrates, and appreciates the multigenerational art form.
Architecture as an Instruction-Based Art
Druker Design Gallery
Harvard GSD
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Through October 15
This exhibition draws on architecture instructions and other modes of expression that architects use to convey their ideas. The showcase considers how these tools are experienced and enable architects to make decisions.
Geoffrey Bawa: It is Essential to be There
Yale School of Architecture
New Haven, Connecticut
Through November 30
The exhibition, It is Essential to be There, draws from Yale’s archives to look at Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa’s practice as he considered the notions of place. Organized into four sections that explore the relationships between ideas, drawings, buildings, and places, these themes further explore images used in Bawa’s practice.
Towards a Newer Brutalism: Solar Pavilions, Appliance Houses, and other Topologies of Contemporary Life
Frances Loeb Library
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Through October 20
Through visual materials and text, the exhibition examines the principles of midcentury Brutalism and its 21st-century possibilities, including the work of Alison and Peter Smithson. The result is a conversation around the work of a new generation of designers interested in the modernist forms and materiality of the controversial style.
SURVEY: Multi-Modal Readings Of Bandelier National Monument’s Geologic And Spatial Relations
Harvard GSD Dean’s Office
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Through October 20
In the Summer of 2023, Harvard GSD’s Penny White Project Fund and Cornell AAP’s Robert James Eidlitz Travel Fellowship team documented and analyzed the Bandelier National Monument, which preserves the homes and territory of Ancestral Puebloans, to analyze the relationship between humans and the landscape.
From Italy, with Love, by Bloomingdales
Bloomingdales 59th Street Flagship Store
New York
Through September 9
As part of iconic department store Bloomingdale’s From Italy, With Love pop-up, they’ve partnered with Salone del Mobile Milano to showcase Italian furniture. The showcase is supplemented by weekly panel discussions at the 59th Street Flagship Store.
The Armory Show
The Javits Center
New York
September 6 to 8
Since its founding in 1994, The Armory Show has played a meaningful role in engaging programming and partnerships within the New York as well as global art community. Each year the showcase activates the 5th Avenue Armory, bringing together some of the most influential international modern art galleries.
Objects: USA 2024 by R & Company
R & Company
64 White Street
New York
September 6 to January 9, 2025
Objects: USA 2024 marks the launch of R & Company’s triennial exhibition. With this launch, R & Company paves the way for individual artists and their works to defy rigid traditional boundaries. The exhibition supports alternative processes, and offers a space that engages both the artists and audience in new directions.
Dear Mazie, group exhibition by Amaza Lee Meredith
Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)
601 West Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia
September 6 to March 9, 2025
The group exhibition Dear Mazie is inspired by the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), a pioneering artist and educator who became the first known Black queer woman to practice as an architect in the United States. Dear Mazie is meant to be more than just an exhibition—it’s a letter of sorts, a conversation that continues the legacy of Amaza Lee Meredith in her hometown of Charlottesville.
Mona Kuhn: The Schindler House, A Love Affair
Galerie XII Los Angeles
2525 Michigan Avenue Suite B2
Santa Monica, California
September 7 to October 12
This multimedia exhibition was inspired by a letter from R.M. Schindler to a mysterious lover. It showcases portraits, taken in modernist house, that have been solarized.
Masterworks
The Future Perfect
St. Luke’s Place
September 12 to October 25
Masterworks at The Future Perfect showcases pieces from the 40-year career of Piet Hein Eek. The show brings together furniture pieces and decorative wares from the Dutch designer.
Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s–1970s
Kemper Art Museum
Washington University’s Danforth Campus
St. Louis, Missouri
September 13 to January 6, 2025
Located on the Washington University Campus, The Kemper Art Museum presents Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis. This major exhibition reveals how the convergence of civic, cultural, and racial histories transformed the city of St. Louis. Opening September 13th and running through January 6, this exhibition delves into themes of historical evolution, the paradoxes of urban renewal, and the impact of midcentury modernism.
The Socrates Annual 2024
Astoria, Queens, New York
September 14 to April 6, 2025
The Socrates Annual 2024, featuring nine artists selected through an open call, features new ecology-focused installations. Running from mid-September to April at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York, the exhibition engages the park’s past, present, and future; as it explores the park’s industrial wetland past and its evolving ecosystem.
Table Manners
SFMOMA
151 3rd Street
San Francisco, California
September 14 to May 2025
Celebrating how design has shaped our connections with food, communities, and our bodies, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents a curated selection of tableware from the SFMOMA Architecture + Design Collection. Featuring works from renowned artists like Virgil Abloh and Zaha Hadid. From September to May, this exhibition reimagines the dinner party experience with pieces from six standout designers.
Crafting Topographies
Salon Design
27 Vestry Street Ground Floor
New York
Opens September 20
Salon Design, a women-led contemporary art gallery based in New York, presents Crafting Topographies. The exhibition showcases the work of Morri Design, an Indian textile studio that merges the traditional craft of textile techniques with contemporary design. Curated by Suchi Reddy, who follows the mantra “form follows feeling,” Morri Design embraces the slow, deliberate, meditative process in a steadfast relationship with its artisans.
Materialized Space: Architecture of Paul Rudolph
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 5th Avenue
New York
September 30 to March 16, 2025
Home to some of the world’s largest and finest art, the Met presents Materialized Space, an exhibition highlighting Paul Rudolph’s contributions to modern architecture. Displaying traces from his journey—from experimental houses in Florida to his utopian visions of urban megastructures and mixed-use skyscrapers—the exhibition will be showcased from late Septembers to mid-March.
Sunset Corridor
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street
Fort Worth, Texas
October 4 to January 5, 2025
Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe of San San International present Sunset Corridor at the Modern Museum of Fort Worth, exploring the San San Universe. Made up of six architectural zones and a cinema, each exhibition intricately weaves into a sprawling metanarrative that delves into alternative information technologies, transient youth, and emerging countercultures.
UMBAU. Nonstop Transformation
Goethe-Institut New York; Architektur Galerie Berlin
October 10 to November 6 in New York
October 18 to 26 in Berlin
Hamburg-based gmp Architects will exhibit UMBAU. Nonstop Transformation, a showcase of the firm’s approach to building conversion through selected case studies. The traveling exhibition will later debut at Architektur Galerie Berlin where different case studies will be the focus.
The Way I See It: Selections from the KAWS Collection
Drawing Center
35 Wooster Street
New York
October 10 to January 19, 2025
The Drawing Center, a museum and nonprofit exhibition space in New York City dedicated to showcasing historical and contemporary drawings, will feature the work of artist KAWS. The exhibition will stage a rich collection of drawings by the self-taught comic and graffiti artists. The show will highlight KAWS unique taste and provide context for his unique connoisseurship.