A major exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art will explore contemporary architecture as a powerful means for improving social conditions. This exhibit focuses on 11 noteworthy built or under-construction projects in underserved communities around the world. The exhibition will be on view from Oct. 3, 2010, through Jan. 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 features 11 projects – located in the United States, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, France, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Bangladesh, and Lebanon – that 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.