Architecture of Life

Architecture of Life, the inaugural exhibition in BAMPFA's landmark new building, explores the ways that architecture—as concept, metaphor, and practice—illuminates various aspects of life experience: the nature of the self and psyche, the fundamental structures of reality, and the power of the imagination to reshape our world. Occupying every gallery in the new building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the exhibition comprises over two hundred works of art in a wide range of media, as well as scientific illustrations and architectural drawings and models, made over the past two thousand years. 

Boundary-breaking, innovative, and radically interdisciplinary, the exhibition presents visually exquisite, rarely seen works in ways that suggest new connections and meanings. International in scope, Architecture of Life includes work by a wide range of artists, including George Ault, Louise Bourgeois, Gustave Caillebotte, Luca Cambiaso, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Kos, Marlene Kos, Fernand Léger, Ed Loftus, George Ohr, Georgia O'Keeffe, Qiu Zhijie, Ad Reinhardt, A. G. Rizzoli, Tomás Saraceno, Do Ho Suh; architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Buckminster Fuller, Toyo Ito, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; plus scientists and composers, and numerous related objects and documents from around the world.