Perfect Acts of Architecture

Aug 15–Oct 19, 2002

MoMA

Bernard Tschumi. The Manhattan Transcripts, Episode 2: The Street (Border Crossing) (detail). 1978. Ink, charcoal, graphite, cut-and-pasted photographic reproductions, Letraset type, and color pencil on tracing paper, 24″ × 32′ 2″ (61 × 980.4 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase and partial gift of the architect in honor of Lily Auchincloss

The exhibition presents six series of highly inventive drawings created between 1972 and 1987 by Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, and Thom Mayne-young architects who went on to establish international reputations. In the early 1970s, a sluggish world economy and an entrenched professional conservatism had all but curtailed innovative building, moving the most talented architects into an academic environment. Encountering a turbulent intellectual scene there, they used graphic experimentation as a primary means of researching the connections between architecture, philosophy, film, and contemporary culture. The stage was thus set for an eruption of ’paper architecture’ of incomparable beauty, brilliance, and depth.

AXA Gallery is open from Monday to Friday 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m. and Saturday 12:00–5:00 p.m., and is closed Sunday.

Organized by the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University. Presented by AXA Gallery and The Museum of Modern Art.

The accompanying publication is supported by a generous grant from Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown.

Publication

  • Perfect Acts of Architecture Hardcover, 180 pages
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