Towards Architecture and Beyond: Speaking at the M3 Symposium in New York

During the New York run of M3: Beyond Territories, I was invited to speak at the symposium organised by the Hong Kong Institute of Architects. My talk looked at a simple question: what happens when architecture becomes an exhibition?

I started with the oldest answer, the Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities. It is a room that collects objects to say something about the world. A contemporary architecture show does much the same job with models, drawings and photographs.

Architecture has a famous rule: form follows function. In an exhibition, I would change one word: form follows content. The space is only useful if it helps visitors understand what they are looking at.

That was the thinking behind Future-proof, our exhibit for The Henderson. A building belongs to the city in our time. So we did not try to tell the whole story. We picked four things that make The Henderson distinctive and gave each one its own column:

• Sustainability

• Human-centric design

• Aesthetics and functionality

• Advancement of industry

Most architecture exhibitions rely on models, renderings, and photographs. We wanted to explore something beyond the visual: the visitor experience. What would make an architecture exhibition more interesting? We imagined the four themes as glowing pillars that form an envelope, where visitors can walk inside and under, and discover elements hidden inside drawers.

Some may question whether that makes any difference. I beg to differ. It makes all the difference when visitors have to make an extra effort to find what they are looking at, and to decide what deserves their attention.