How Modern : Biographies of Architecture in China 1949-1979

The exhibition How Modern: Biographies of Architecture in China 1949-1979, produced and curated in collaboration with M+ Museum in Hong Kong, reconsiders these assumptions. The exhibition takes the multimedia documentation of architectural production under the socialist Chinese regime as a point of departure, illuminating specific social and cultural microhistories that are not evident in purely textual historical sources. These social biographies of projects—characterized by material and technical inventiveness, continuities and discontinuities with social, economic, and political inclinations, and direct and indirect influences from within and beyond the Eastern bloc—challenge prevailing assessments of design and architectural practice in Mao’s China as monolithic, hermetic, and autocratic.

Examining more nuanced histories and narratives behind projects from the undocumented perspectives of design institutes, architects, and inhabitants, the exhibition extends the CCA’s research into new readings of modern architecture and practice across different geographies, cultures and sociopolitical contexts.

The exhibition is organized by the CCA in collaboration with M+, Hong Kong.

Curator: Shirley Surya, M+, Hong Kong
Research: Li Hua, Southeast University, Nanjing
Curatorial team: Francesco Garutti, Megan Marin, Charlie-Anne Côté, Victoria Addona, CCA, and Naomi Altman, M+, Hong Kong
Exhibition design: Johnston Marklee, Los Angeles
Graphic design: Alan Woo, Berlin
Design development: Sébastien Larivière, Anh Truong