Fair Enough at Venice Architecture Biennale

The Russian Federation looks back on history and offers an imaginary commercial event for the exhibition

For the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale (on now through 23 November), the exhibition’s curator Rem Koolhaas selected the arguably ambiguous theme of “Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014” as a guide for all participating nations. As one would expect, such a wide and insidious topic has been interpreted in many different ways, influenced by local spirit and each nation’s unique societal, political and artistic evolution—not to mention history …

The Seafoam Palace, Museum of Curiosity

Restoring a historical building into a public space for intrigue and inspiration

The Seafoam Palace is part restoration project and part creative endeavor. The interdisciplinary project is currently spearheaded by a group of artists, writers, filmmakers, sociologists, engineers, historians and more (including Burning Man co-founder John Law) in Detroit. The historic building (a two-story structure that’s on the National Register of Historic Places) has already been purchased and now the team behind Seafoam Palace is hoping to …

Summer Dreams at Het Nieuwe Instituut

Archivist Alfred Marks curates the Rotterdam institute's architectural materials to tell the story of how the Dutch spend their leisure time

Having served as an archivist at Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut, for the past two decades, Alfred Marks is making a curatorial debut with “Summer Dreams,” an exhibition inspired by the way the Dutch spent their leisure time in the last century. Through his impressive experience with the institute’s 550+ archives—which cover the work of countless Dutch architects and designers from the period 1850-2000—Marks noticed a …