Crossed Histories

CROSSED HISTORIES
Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable, Phyllis Lambert, on Architecture and the City

24.09-28.11.2025
Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm
Archizoom, SG Building, Place Ada Lovelace, EPFL

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 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. 

This exhibition was produced by the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris with Léa-Catherine Szacka, curator and Catherine Bédard, associated curator. 

PRESS KIT

EVENTS

• Opening! Tuesday 23 September
  6.30pm — Introduction words by Cyril Veillon, Pier Vittorio Aureli
  Lecture by Léa-Catherine Szacka
  7.30pm — Opening of the exhibition door and aperitive
  
  
• Night of the Museum Saturday 27 September
  2pm-midnight — Discover a new installation:
  
  Unveiling the Archives: Alice Biro & Jeanne Bueche
   Organized with the Archives de la construction moderne
  2-9pm — My drawing in midnight blue, Cyanotype workshop
  4, 6.30, 9pm — Guided tour of the exhibition

• Guided tour Tuesday 30 September
  5pm — By Léa-Catherine Szacka, in English (followed by a School Lecture, organized by EPFL Architecture)
  
  
• Guided tour Wednesday 15 October
  6pm — by Léa-Catherine Szacka, in French
  
  
• Book Launch #1 Tuesday 28 October
  5pm — Guided tour by Léa-Catherine Szacka, in English
  6pm — Book launch Cooking Up Dinner Speeches: Ise Gropius in Japan, edited by Almut Grunewald, Zurich: gta Verlag, 2025. Discussion with Almut Grunewald and Irina Davidovici moderated by Léa-Catherine Szacka
  
  
• Book Launch #2 Tuesday 11 November
  5pm — Guided tour by Léa-Catherine Szacka, in French
  6pm — Book Launch La Gae. Gae Aulenti (1927-2012), curated by Giovanni Agosti, Triennale Milano, 2025. Round Table with Nina Artioli, Nina Bassoli, Paola Viganò, moderated by Léa-Catherine Szacka

Guided tours are upon registration.
Guided tours can be organized on request for groups and schools.

INTRODUCTION

The three protagonists of this exhibition have contributed to widen the debate on architecture and the city, bringing it to the public space. 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? 

4 cities, 5 projects, 4 decades

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, establish a new collective narrative.

Cross-disciplinary themes

The exhibition gives access to a set of documents linking North America (Canada and the United States) and Europe (France and Italy) in terms of the themes addressed. Three cross-cutting themes emerge through the assembled images, and are revealed more explicitly through text excerpts taken from Ada Louise Huxtable’s seminal articles, as well as from curator Léa-Catherine Szacka’s essay for the exhibition catalog:
– an ambivalent relationship with modernism,
– pioneering work in historic preservation,
– defending architecture as a public concern.

Greystone Montreal

A chapter of the exhibition is dedicated to the work carried out by Phyllis Lambert between 1972 and 1974, with the help of young British photographer Richard Pare: the production of a photographic series documenting a group of buildings constructed in grey stone in the Canadian metropolis. This survey, conducted throughout Montreal’s neighborhoods, catalogues traditional townhouses, commercial buildings, as well as civic structures. The photographic collection reveals the relationships between the city’s growth, individual actors, social changes, and a building material. 

Crossed interviews

The exhibition also includes previously unpublished 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), Giovanna Borasi (Director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture), Maristella Casciato (Curator of Architecture, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles) and Barry Bergdoll (Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University, New York).

Archives Through the Lens of Gender

Gae Aulenti, Ada Louise Huxtable, and Phyllis Lambert have rich and accessible archives. But such a situation remains rare in the fields of architecture and urban planning. Archives contribute to the writing of our collective memory which unfortunately remains largely hegemonic and male-centered. How can we address these gaps and work toward recognizing women’s histories as worthy of being archived? As a complement to the Crossed Histories exhibition, Archizoom presents a series of interviews to explore alternative ways of making history.

With contributions from: Stéphanie Dadour (PhD and architectural historian, Paris-Malaquais), Irina Davidovici (architect, director of gta Archives, Zurich), Laura Hindelang (Assistant Professor, Institute of Art History, University of Bern), Apolline Vranken (architect and FNRS doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta ULB, Belgium), Léa-Catherine Szacka (architect, associate professor at the University of Manchester and director of the Manchester Architecture Research Group, MARG).

Discover all the interviews

Credits