IMPERFECT
HEALTH
The Medicalization of Architecture
CCA \ Montréal
25.10.2011 – 01.04.2012
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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.
Along with the exhibition, we are
hosting special events like a screening of Safe (1995), and public programs like Expert in the Library.
The research phase of the project was developed in collaboration with
i2a, International Institute of Architecture, Vico Morcote, Switzerland.
+ info: CCA
