Crafting Tomorrow: Architecture in Future Tense

Architecture, famously a discipline of space, is also an articulation of time. Haunted by the ruins of its past and its possible future alike, it stands in the present as a profoundly contingent undertaking. In this lecture, Glenn Adamson will draw from his latest full-length publication Craft: An American History, as well as his forthcoming book, A Century of Tomorrows, to construct a narrative of architecture's impermanence. The talk will reach beyond buildings, incorporating examples from fine art as well as crafts such as pottery and basketmaking, ultimately arguing for a temporal basis to the understanding of “material intelligence.” 

An accompanying exhibition, called Almost Useful, curated by Glenn Adamson and the MOJ Committee, is on view in the Campbell Elmaleh Gallery January 17 – February 17, 2024. 

2024 MOJ LECTURER + GUEST CURATOR:


Glenn Adamson is a curator, writer and historian based in New York and London. He has previously been Director of the Museum of Arts and Design and Head of Research at the V&A. Dr. Adamson’s publications include Thinking Through Craft (2007); The Craft Reader (2010); Postmodernism: Style and Subversion (2011, with Jane Pavitt); The Invention of Craft (2013); Art in the Making (2016, with Julia Bryan-Wilson); Fewer Better Things: The Hidden Wisdom of Objects (2018); Objects: USA 2020; and Craft: An American History (2021). His next book, A Century of Tomorrows, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2024.

Dr. Adamson is Artistic Director for Design Doha, a new biennial festival for Qatar (forthcoming in 2024), and editor of Material Intelligence, a quarterly online journal published by the Chipstone Foundation. He will serve as curatorial director for Design Miami/ in December 2024. His current curatorial projects include Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth (2023) and Worlds Within: The Art of Toshiko Takaezu at the Isamu Noguchi Museum (forthcoming in 2024, and touring thereafter).

2024 MOJ COMMITTEE:


Bhargavi Murthy (M. Arch, 2024)

Sasson Rafailov (PhD in the Constructed Environment)

Tabi Summers (BS Arch, 2024)

Madeleine Zahn (M. Arch, 2025)

The annual Michael Owen Jones lecture and exhibition is a student-led initiative which hosts a trailblazing individual in architecture or an associated discipline at the School of Architecture. The initiative is made possible by the generous support of the MOJ endowment, named in honor of a former student, Michael Owen Jones (BSArch '85).