image courtesy of CCA

The Other Architect

28 October 2015 to 10 April 2016

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) presents new exhibition which can be visited until 10 April, 2015. For as long as architecture has been reduced to a service to society or an “industry” whose ultimate goal is only to build, there have been others who imagine it instead as a field of intellectual research: energetic, critical, and radical.

But how can we produce or maintain this position?

In the history of architecture, especially since the 1960s, there has been a proliferation of experiments representing the work of architects who ventured to creatively and thoroughly rethink every aspect of the profession. Moved by a desire to contribute more substantially and more actively to the construction of a cultural agenda, they critically analyzed their roles and challenged the precepts and ultimate goals of the discipline.

From a set of varied approaches drawn from many people, places, and times, the other architect emerges: searching for different operating models, aiming for collaborative strategies, introducing strange concepts, and experimenting with new kinds of tools. The result is an ample array of possibilities: Urban Innovations Group, ILAUD (International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design), AMO, IAUS (Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies), CUP (Center for Urban Pedagogy), ARAU (Atelier de recherche et d’action urbaines), Architects’ Revolutionary Council, Corridart, Architectural Detective Agency, Take Part Workshop, Kommunen in der Neuen Welt, AD/AA/Polyark, Design-A-Thon, Architecture Machine Group, Forensic Architecture, Multiplicity, Art Net, Global Tools, CIRCO, Pidgeon Audio Visual, Delos Symposion, and Anyone Corporation.....Continue Reading

Shimbo Minami, an illustrator and cartoonist, and a member of ROJO, at work documenting the street. c. 1985. Courtesy of Tetsuo Matsuda © The ROJO Society

Image from “PHTV : What’s Up With Public Housing?” video produced by CUP. 2004. Courtesy of Damon Rich © Andrea Meller, Damon Rich, Rosten Woo & the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP)

The Pidgeon Audio Visual kit “Technology Is the Answer But What Was the Question?” by Cedric Price. 1979. CCA © Pidgeon Digital/World Microfilms Publications.

Page from the URBAN 2 presentation booklet. 1968 Courtesy of Nicholas Negroponte

Ekistics: Reviews on the Problems and Science of Human Settlements, vol. 24, no. 143 (October 1967). Constantinos A. Doxiadis Archives © Constantinos and Emma Doxiadis Foundation, Athens.

An annotated outline of various ways to analyze a street. 18 September 1970. Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies fonds, CCA. Gift of Eisenman Architects © CCA, Montreal.

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