Countryside, The Future
This highly immersive exhibition served as a site-specific response for the decade’s long research of Rem Koolhaas, investigating the role the Countryside plays across a myriad of global advancements, investigations, crises, and sociopolitical pursuits of humanity. The extensive research on display inhabited the Guggenheim in a completely unique way, using case studies to explore how environments outside of dense urban environments are transforming under pressure and emerging in innovative and unpredictable ways.
The exhibition design and production demonstrated close collaboration between the internal Guggenheim curatorial and exhibition design teams, Rem Koolhaas and AMO, the research studio of Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam, as well as numerous scientists, scholars, journalists, historians, sociologists. Because the building played a critical role to the presentation of the content, including images, graphics, video, recreations, and demonstrations, all ideas were tested and their outcomes evaluated to achieve the desired experience for visitors. Autonomous robots even served a role, shuffling various characters between case studies and narratives.
Installation views: Countryside, The Future, February 20, 2020–February 14, 2021, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Photographs: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
Curatorial: Troy Conrad Therrien and Ashley Mendelsohn
Exhibition Design: Lucie Rebeyrol and Jaime Krone
Collaborators: Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal, Rita Varjabedian, Anne Schneider, Aleksandr Zinovev, Sebastian Bernardy, Yotam Ben Hur, Valentin Bansac, Federico Martelli
Links: www.guggenheim.org
