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The Center for Architecture chose to close its 20th-anniversary celebrations with an exhibition by and for its very own members. Built by New York is a photography exhibition comprised of work from AIA members in the New York, Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens chapters now on view through April 5, 2025 at the Center’s Lafayette gallery space.
Each of the astounding 281 projects represented in the show span the 20 years the Center has been active, or look ahead 20 years into the future of the city. The sheer amount of work represented has been designed and built by 112 New York City–based architects, but the breadth is definitely not limited to New York City geographically. Projects span the country and reach overseas, reasserting the international excellence of—and demand for—New York’s design scene and the practitioners that shape it.
The Center last mounted work by members in 2016 in an exhibition titled New York New Design. While the 2016 show showcased photos on thin paper nearly flush with a fluorescent orange wall, the 2024 effort has a higher production value. Photos pop on the white walls and appear to float just a few inches from the wall, adding depth to the viewer’s experience of the photography. Images are also staggered in a dynamic way across the walls, allowing children and those using wheelchairs to see images just as readily as your average-height woman or group glancing at the top-most row from afar, floating above the heads of the crowd.
The 281 projects are displayed alphabetically: A lovely custom font guides viewers through sections labeled “W–Z,” for example, referencing the name of the projects themselves rather than individual firms. This choice reaffirms the show’s focus on built work and place, rather than heroic practitioners or famous names. But names do make their way into the work, as firm leaders, designers, and collaborators have quotes and words of wisdom mounted on the wall in the same playful vinyl letters as the wayfinding. The selected quotes illuminate key issues, goals, and focuses of New York architects today. For instance, Magnusson Architecture and Planning principal Fernando Villa is quoted saying: “Affordable housing is leading the way in making housing more sustainable.”
Another set of words from Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson of Caples Jefferson reads: “The more we listen to our communities, the deeper our art becomes.”
Nor is this a show of just photography. It is about architecture after all. Select projects have model representation, shown on low pedestals in the center of gallery spaces. In this way, circulation doesn’t just revolve around the perimeter, but encourages viewers to zig-zag their way around and through and break up the potentially rigid alphabetical curation.
Built by New York truly envelopes the Center, breaking out of dedicated galleries to plaster the stairwell, walls surrounding the sunken auditorium space, and corridors. The photos and models are also accompanied by bold wallcoverings that at first resemble geometric ink blots printed on the walls, but upon closer inspection are abstract takes on the show’s font family and name. Appearing in black-and-white compositions as well as with a delicious yellow background in some spaces, the activation successfully breaks up the monotony of the white wall galleries. All graphics and exhibition design overall were designed by Once–Future Office.
Built by New York opened to the public on October 1, simultaneously launching the monthlong architecture celebration of Archtober in the city. The 14th edition, Archtober 2024: Tracing the Future, focuses on similar themes of futuremaking in New York while learning from our past accomplishments. Affordable housing, sustainable design, and infrastructure are at the forefront of the month’s curation, and similarly on the minds of all civic- and social-minded architects working in New York today.
Before Archtober is over, be sure to stop by the Center for Architecture and take in the amazing breadth and depth of AIA members across the five boroughs. It feels like a celebration of who is making and remaking the city both today and tomorrow.