Red Location Museum Of Struggle, Pt. Elizabeth, S. Africa © Iwan Baan
This Sunday MoMA will open their latest architectural exhibition Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement. This exhibit presents 11 architectural projects located in five continents, and how the architects engage with local, social, economic, and political conditions to respond to the needs of the community in which their design is sited. The 11 projects featured in this exhibit have been built in the United States, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Lebanon, and underscore a renewed commitment of architecture and its practitioners to a higher level of social responsibility in design. Far from the typical gestures of utopia-like communities planned within a hyper-advanced technological system, which are dominating architectural theory and practice right now, Small Scale, Big Change is grounded in pragmatism, separating itself from the esoteric. From a handmade school in Bangladesh to a reconsideration of a modernist housing project in Paris, to a cable car that connects a single hillside barrio in Caracas to the city at large, this exhibit focuses on small scale bringing big change.
I had the privilege of studying under Jo Noero at Washington University Graduate School of Architecture. He gave us a mini-lecture on his projects in S.Africa. This Museum is such a thoughtful project. Being in St. Louis, we also have a small housing project his firm designed, again with very thoughtful design approaches. He taught me a lot about how to think about design and to approach it not from how it looks, but to truly look at “who” it’s for. Beauty can come from intent. I encourage all to look into his work, as well as the social architecture of the Mid Century and learn from it as I did. Thank Jo!