This issue of eVolo studies the most innovative examples of performance and exhibition architecture today. These are projects that revolutionize architecture on many levels, including sustainability, aesthetics, technology, and urban design. It is interesting to point out that these works are not concentrated in one specific region, but are located in every corner of the globe; from MVRDV’s Comic and Animation Museum in China, to the new Broad Museum in Los Angeles by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, or Kengo Kuma’s Victoria and Albert Museum in Dundee, Scotland.
The variety of programs is as diverse as their location. Steven Holl’s Museum of Ocean and Surf in Biarritz, France creates awareness of the oceans’ fragile state and emulates the kinetic sensibility of water through sweeping walls and carefully articulated volumes. Holm Architecture’s circular Samaranch Olympic Museum in Tianjin, China is a study on framing and juxtaposing artificial and natural landscapes to generate a continuous exhibition loop. X-TU Architects’ Prehistory Museum in Jeongok, South Korea was parametrically designed as a futuristic vessel erected as a bridge atop hills along the Hantan River preserving the untouched historic landscape. Among other projects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is an interface between exhibition spaces and the city. Other smaller scale projects are WORD’s Holocaust Memorial for Atlantic City’s Boardwalk, which acts as an inscriptive apparatus, which etches the history of the Holocaust in our memory, and the America’s Cup Pavilion by Daniel Carper, which functions as an epicenter for various activities. The design is based on the tectonic and function qualities of high-end sailing vessels.
