Powerhouse Company and critic and architectural historian Hans Ibelings (the Architecture Observer) present SHIFTS, a polemical exhibition examining seismic social and economic shifts occurring globally, with the aim to provoke questions about what fundamental changes the cultures and practices of architecture may consequently undergo.
SHIFTS is a follow-up to the partnership’s previous project, Rien ne va Plus (a gambling term, translated as ‘place no more bets’), which explored the impact upon architecture of, and the discipline’s own complicity with, 2008’s financial crash.
The exhibition appropriates the formats of a traditional architectural exhibition – diagrams, films, text and, in particular, models – to survey some key indicators of the current context. By providing these seductive visualisations of the socio- economic data behind development and design, Powerhouse Company & Hans Ibelings invite the visitor to speculate upon how architecture arrived at its current conditions, and to ponder what comes next.
