A New View of 20th-and 21st-Century Architecture and Design

This fall the Art Institute opened a new presentation of the museum’s seminal holdings of architecture and design of the 20th and 21st centuries. Designed by Chicago-based architecture firm Norman Kelley as a modular system of walls and columns, the new galleries offer thematic installations of visionary plans for cities and housing, revolutionary furniture and graphic design, speculative research and material investigations, and genre-defying works of ceramic, fiber, film, and other media.

Highlighting both important historical holdings like Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago and Charles Harrison’s View-Master, as well as recently acquired contemporary works by artists such as Tatiana Bilbao, Andrés Jaque, Jonathan Muecke, Norman Teague, Stanley Tigerman, Clarissa Tossin, and Amanda Williams, this rotating presentation showcases how architects and designers use creative experimentation and critical thinking to reimagine the ways we live together. The display celebrates Chicago’s long history of architecture and design innovation while also reflecting the increasingly global reach of the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection of architecture and design, one of the oldest in the United States. 

Some recurring themes include the complex relationship between urban planning and the lived experience of a city’s inhabitants, Chicago’s influence on midcentury design, and the anonymous labor behind the everyday objects and structures that shape our lives. Collectively the projects offer frameworks to interpret the legacies of modernism, as well as some of the most important issues of our time, including environmental crises, social justice, and emerging technologies.

This installation is curated by the museum’s Architecture and Design curatorial team: Irene Sunwoo, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator; Alison Fisher, Harold and Margot Schiff Curator; and Anna Burckhardt Pérez, Neville Bryan Assistant Curator.

Find additional historical works from our architecture and design collection in Architectural Fragments from Chicago, on view in Gallery 200 on the second floor around the Woman’s Board Grand Staircase.