Crossed Histories
Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable, Phyllis Lambert, on Architecture and the City

Born in the 1920s, critic Ada Louise Huxtable and architects Gae Aulenti and Phyllis Lambert were among the most influential figures in architecture and design during the postwar boom. Pioneers in what was then a largely male-dominated field, and key players in the transition from modernism to postmodernism, they set out to conquer the public spaces they designed and built.

Through accounts, archival images, drawings and photographs, this exhibition sheds light on some of their emblematic achievements and interweaves their extraordinary biographies to rethink the crucial role of women in the history of 20th-century architecture.

The three protagonists of this exhibition have taken the debate on architecture and the city to the public space and the metropolis. They have succeeded in preserving entire districts of their beloved cities, or in changing the general public’s view of what they can contribute to their environment. How did they do it? Thanks to or despite what circumstances? 

While many recent studies have focused on single narratives and individual stories, Crossed Histories proposes to explore five projects from the second half of the last century – The Seagram Building and its Plaza (New York) ; The Destruction of Pennsylvania Station ; The project to document Montreal’s grey stone buildings and the creation of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) ; the Musée d’Orsay (Paris) ; and Piazzale Cadorna (Milan) – and thus follows a series of thematic red threads that interweave these stories into a tightly woven network of relationships that, together, will establish a new collective narrative.

The result is an unprecedented collection of images and documents thematically linking North America (Canada and the United States) and Europe (France and Italy). It also includes exclusive interviews, conducted in 2024, with Phyllis Lambert (architect and founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal), Alexandra Lange (architecture and design critic, New York), Mary McLeod (professor of architecture, Columbia University, New York), Mirko Zardini (curator and architecture critic, Milan, former director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal), Giovanna Borasi (director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal), Maristella Casciato (curator of architecture, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles), and Barry Bergdoll (professor of art history and archaeology, Columbia University, New York). 

A book, published by SKIRA, accompanies the exhibition (144 pages, 50 illustrations, bilingual).

Opening on February 12, at 6 pm

Curator: Léa-Catherine Szacka
Associated curator: Catherine Bédard