Marking an overdue reappraisal of building tall, Tall Buildings is an examination of 25 recent schemes and an exploration of the issues fuelling the contemporary debate on skyscrapers. MoMAs current exhibition heralds the latest high-rise soul searching that has ensued since the destruction of the Twin Towers. With technology, sustainability and human safety channelling a current sea-change, this exhibition looks up at a new breed of tower.
When Foster and Partners Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank appeared in MoMAs 1983 exhibition, Three New Skyscrapers, it was an exciting opportunity for the practice to reveal a new pioneering strategy for building tall. Twenty years later, 30 St Mary Axe and the World Trade Center are projects that sit at the crest of a learning curve. They are represented with large-scale models, drawings, and photographs and described as exemplars of the technological innovation, sensitivity to urban context and design flare that defines the genre for the twenty-first century.
Organized by Terence Riley, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art, and Guy Nordenson, Structural Engineer, New York, and Associate Professor of Architecture and Structures, Princeton University, the exhibition is the second in a series of five exhibitions presented by The Lily Auchincloss Fund for Contemporary Architecture. The exhibition runs until 27 September 2004.
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions
