'What does it mean for architecture to have a civic consciousness?' — A new survey of young designers at the Carnegie Museum explores the answers through a global lens

The whole world is coming to Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art.

The 126-year-old institution is emphasizing an international focus in a new exhibition that will examine how the work of ten emerging architectural talents from practices across the world “relates to local communities and the natural environments in which they exist.” 

The Fabricated Landscape features a range of designs as diverse as its list of exhibitors. From public infrastructure projects to churches and single-family housing units, the assembly of works represented in the exhibition will be seen for the first time in this country. They are emblematic of the changing face of an industry in dire need of a multitude of demographic changes making it better resemble the global community its higher-minded practitioners are charged with serving.

Each firm was able to submit three projects a piece from designers born after 1975, resulting in a colorful landscape in the museum’s Heinz Galleries exhibited in a multitude of different objects and photographs. The pieces showcase the young designers' ambitions toward a just and different world as seen in Frida Escobedo and SO — IL’s proposal for healthier public housing in Mexico or Anna Heringer’s handmade METI school in Bangladesh.

The survey was organized by the Heinz Architectural Center’s curator-at-large Raymund Ryan, who wanted to explore the question of “what does it mean for architecture to have a civic consciousness?” through works he saw were responsive to newfound challenges that will have disproportionate impacts on generations to come.

“Each of their projects has within it the seeds of potentially bigger and multiple projects,” he said in a statement. “They embrace a new sense of urgency regarding nature and the planned environment from how and where we live to how we engage with the world around us.”

The Fabricated Landscape opened June 26th and will run through January 17th of next year.