Displayed Spaces

Book excerpt: Why do we organise architecture exhibitions? Conventional shows - contexts displaying documentation, technical drawings, three-dimensional models, photographs and videos, frameworks where sketches and drawings are treated as if they were "paintings", models as if they were "sculptures" and photographs idealising what they depict within strangely uninhabited landscapes - are contrasted by practices of display that focus on a different kind of investigation and offer an uncharacteristic way of involving the public with the show by means of spatial solutions within the exhibition space. The attitude that characterises the traditional approach to architecture exhibitions inevitably generates a distinction between the visitors that can read and interpret the displayed objects and those who cannot. Hardly any empathy is generated between the exposed objects and the subjects viewing them; often these kinds of exhibitions only try to solve the problem of presenting objects that cannot be transferred into exhibitions spaces. In the last years we have assisted to the diffusion of exhibitions characterised by different approaches, i.e. shows in which architectural production is presented as an issue which is integrated in a broader critical context and assumes a central role from an unexpected point of view, or exhibitions that concentrate on an emotional involvement of visitors who are not confronted with a specific object and its characteristics, but with the transmission of an experience capable of establishing an intense relationship between the public and the content of the show. In order to explore these issues, this conference brings together critical contributions related to both the conception and the construction of contemporary architecture exhibitions.