Architecture exhibitions: chronology of a modern cultural phenomenon and some inquietude

Abstract

This paper discusses the history of architecture exhibitions (and exhibitions about architecture), which, having originated in the beginning of the twentieth century, accompany us to this day as physicallyconstituted statements or spatially-determined narratives on the creativity of modern architects, for it was in the Modern Age that such events developed. It argues that the exhibitions were, and still are, a stage for the experimentation and courage evidenced by avant-garde and consensually-consolidated styles architectural (and urbanistic) production, but which also respond to didactic purposes as well as propaganda for cultural, governmental and/or private institutions of all sorts. It also comments on the different forms that exhibitions assumed in the last 100 years, depending on the organizers’ (artists or curators) will, to then question their intentions, or the intentions they should have, nowadays. The article also serves as introduction to the exhibition and curatorship theme, which arq.urb magazine defined as subject for issue 20, the last one of 2017.