Professor Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

 

It is a truism that architecture, the most public of the arts, is also the most resistant to exhibition in the modern economy of galleries and museums as it has developed since the mid-18th century. Yet since that time architectural exhibitions have continued to proliferate in number, mutate in form and function, and venture into new venues. 

Rather than rehearse the truism that displays of architecture are comprised generally not of the thing itself, but of various simulacra and representations, this lecture offers an account of the rise of the architecture exhibition as a key ingredient in the modernization of architectural practices, and of the construction of various publics for architecture. 

While a historic arc will be traced that leads to contemporary practice, the focus will be on a set of possiblities for architecture opened up by the 18th and 19th centuries, and consider venues as diverse as the Salon, the Museum, World's Fairs and the public street.

Members of the faculty, staff, students, and the public are cordially invited.

 

No registration necessary. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

 

For more information, please call (416) 978-7416. or visit http://www.uc.utoronto.ca/teetzel2013