Imperfect Health - The Medicalization of Architecture
 Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal (Canada).   25.10.2011 - 01.04.2012
 

   Motive Gallery, Amsterdam (Netherlands). 12.03 - 29.04.2011

Press release

Health is a focus of contemporary political debate in a moment of historically high anxiety, but are architects, urban designers and landscape architects seeking a new moral and political agenda within these concerns? Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture examines the complexity of today’s interrelated and emerging health problems juxtaposed with a variety of proposed architectural and urban solutions.

Pollen, pollution, toxic materials that make up the built environment, globalized industrial food production, reclaimed manufacturing landscapes, unbalanced population demographics, sedentary and indoor lifestyles, and efforts to fight death are becoming imperfect materials for architecture to explore. Emerging as trends like healthy cities, green buildings, fit cities, global cities, re-use cities, tailored cities, these strategies suggest inspired solutions, but could also address isolated concerns which privilege specific users or conditions. The focus on problems sometimes creates conflicting agendas and disregards the complexity of the urban fabric.

A book accompanying the exhibition and extending this research will be published in Spring 2012 by CCA with Lars Müller. Edited by Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi, it includes essays by Carla Keirns, David Gissen, Hilary Sample, Linda Pollak, Deane Simpson, Margaret Campbell, Sarah Schrank, and Nan Ellin.

French
 

Exhibition 25 October 2011 - 1 April 2012. Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1920 rue Baile - Montréal, Québec Canada H3H 2S6. Tel. 514 939 7026. Open on Wednesday - Sunday, 11 am- 6 pm, Thursday, 11 am - 9 pm.

© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2011. All Rights Reserved

Edouard François, architecte. L’immeuble qui pousse, project © Edouard François

Nerea Calvillo, architect, in collaboration with C+ arquitectos and In the Air. In the Air. Toxic topography of Budapest, Hungary, 2008. Production support from LABoral.

R&Sie(n) (François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, Jean Navarro), architects. Dustyrelief F/B-mu, Bangkok, Thailand, 2002. Wood, painting, metal, metallic fibres, dust and resin, 11.5 cm h x 24 x 24 cm. François Lauginie, photographer. Collection FRAC Centre, Orléans.

Benoît Vollmer. Dépositions. Céret, France, 2009. Pigment-based inkjet print on Japanese kozo paper, 45 x 54.5 cm © Benoît Vollmer / Courtesy Van Kranendonk Gallery

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