Light Construction

This exhibition, produced by MoMA’s architecture department, was based on a selection of thirty buildings that differed greatly in terms of scale and use but exemplified one of the characteristic features of the architecture of the nineties: lightweight structures that, as a result of a new architectural sensibility, accorded buildings great translucency and transparency.

The exhibition consisted of thirty-four large-scale photographs, fourteen models and six backlit transparencies that investigated both the projects’ theoretical bases and their material qualities.

Many of the structures in the exhibition were sheathed in translucent materials such as plastic, metal mesh and thin alabaster, that maximised the effect of weightlessness and gave surfaces a dominant role in configuring architectural space.