Dezeen Magazine

10 architecture and design exhibitions we're looking forward to in 2016

Dezeen's design editor Dan Howarth picks 10 of the best upcoming architecture and design exhibitions for 2016, including shows that explore architecture's regenerative power and fashion's place in an age of technology.


A Japanese Constellation: Toyo Ito, SANAA, and Beyond
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA
13 March – 4 July 2016

Sendai Mediatheque model by Toyo Ito

Pritzker Prize winners Toyo Ito and SANAA provide a springboard for exploring the work of contemporary Japanese architects and designers, including Ryue Nishizawa, Sou Fujimoto, Akihisa Hirata and Junya Ishigami.

Models, drawings and images of more than 40 architectural designs will feature in the exhibition, intended to highlight the renewed prominence and innovation of the country's architecture since the 1990s.


Creation from Catastrophe
The Architecture Gallery, RIBA, London, UK
26 January – 24 April 2016

Ideas for rebuilding Hoboken, New Jersey, after Hurricane Sandy by OMA

From masterplans to reconfigure London after the Great Fire of 1666 to contemporary responses to earthquakes and tsunamis, Creation from Catastrophe explores how destruction and devastation present opportunities to radically rethink the built environment.

International projects by architects including Elemental, OMA, Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, Kenzo Tange and Sir Christopher Wren will be used to look at changes in the way cities and communities recover from disasters.


The Works of Miyake Issey
National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
16 March – 13 June 2016

132.5 by Issey Miyake

Devoted to Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, this exhibition will present his approach to designing clothes, research and development, and technology, along with examples of his innovative creations.

It aims to shed light on Miyake's ideas about making things by examining his entire 45-year career, from the 1970s to the present.


London Design Biennale
Somerset House, London, UK
7-27 September 2016

Somerset House

London is set to host its inaugural design biennial, based on the model of the Venice art and architecture biennales, which will coincide with the city's annual design festival

Directed by former Icon editor Christopher Turner, the event will include exhibitions and installations from international participants on the theme Utopia by Design.


Eero Aarnio
Helsinki Design Museum, Finland
8 April – 25 September 2016

Ball Chair by Eero Aarnio

This retrospective spotlights Finnish designer Eero Aarnio – best known for his 1960s fibreglass and plastic furniture pieces, including the famous Ball Chair.

Lamps, small objects and unique one-off pieces from the 1950s to the present will also be shown alongside rarely seen original drawings and sketches demonstrating the 83-year-old designer's work.


Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA
5 May – 14 August 2016

Fall 2012 Ensemble by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen-

The Costume Institute's Spring exhibition will focus on technology's impact on fashion, and how designers are combining the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) in the creative process.

Supported by Apple and designed by OMA, the exhibition will contain more than 100 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear from the world's most influential fashion designers and houses.


Mavericks: Breaking the Mould of British Architecture
Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
26 January – 20 April 2016

House for Essex by FAT and Grayson Perry

From John Soane and Charles Rennie Mackintosh to FAT and Zaha Hadid, 12 British architects are put under the microscope in this exhibition that explores why they refuse to conform to the norms of mainstream architectural culture.

Mavericks focuses on breaking the mould of British architecture and how its subjects are "united only by the unpredictability of their particular kind of maverick-ness".


Venice Architecture Biennale
Venice, Italy
28 May – 27 November 2016

Alejandro Aravena

This year it is architecture's turn to take over the Giardini, Arsenale and other satellite venues around Venice for the 15th edition of the city's biennale.

Under Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena's direction, the biennale will focus on the "battles to be won" to improve quality of life within the built environment.


AL(L) – Projects In Aluminium By Michael Young
CID Grand-Hornu, Belgium
31 January – 29 May 2016

Hex Chair by Michael Young

Hong Kong-based British designer Michael Young's experiments in aluminium will be collected together and displayed side by side at the Centre d'Innovation et de Design in Hornu.

From chairs to bicycles, lighting to cars, Young's products will also be joined by famous examples of the material's use, including Barber and Osgerby's 2012 Olympic Torch and Tokujin Yoshioka's crumpled Memory chair for Moroso.


Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear
V&A museum, London UK
16 April 2016 – 12 March 2017

Colette corset by Chrisitan Dior

350 years of the undergarment will be presented, in brief, as a history of private and intimate clothing – from corsets to court mantuas and boudoir wear to bustles.

Highlights from the V&A's collection of underwear will be displayed thematically alongside contextual archive images.