SMALL SCALE, BIG CHANGE SURVEYS 11 PROJECTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD THAT DEMONSTRATE ARCHITECTURE’S POSITIVE IMPACT ON SOCIAL CONDITIONS
Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, a major exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, will explore contemporary architecture as a powerful means for improving social conditions, focusing on 11 noteworthy built or under-construction projects in under-served communities around the world. The exhibition will be on view from October 3, 2010, through January 3, 2011. Concentrating on a group of architects who confront inequality by using the tools of design, Small Scale, Big Change will examine the ways these architects engage with local, social, economic, and political circumstances to develop positive architectural interventions that begin with an understanding of and deference to a community. Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement is organized by Andres Lepik, Curator, and Margot Weller, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern Art.
Without sacrificing aesthetics, these 11 projects—situated in the United States, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Lebanon—reveal a specificity of place, with architectural solutions emerging from sustained research into local conditions and close collaboration with communities. These featured projects, which include schools, community centers, housing, and infrastructural interventions, signal a change in the longstanding dialogue between architecture and its environs, wherein the architect’s roles, methods, and responsibilities are dramatically reconsidered.
