10 can't-miss architecture & design events to see this April in NYC, LA, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Buffalo, Shenzhen, and Milan

With spring finally upon us, now is the time to go outside and enjoy the variety of architecture and design-centric events on show in April.

From the roster of ongoing and upcoming events listed on Bustler, here are a few featured picks worth checking out.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Latinitudes: A Collection of Latin American Modern Architecture | April 2 – July 18, Chicago

"Presented for the first time in the United States, Latinitudes is a photographic survey of modern architecture across twelve Latin American cities: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bogotá, Colombia; Caracas, Venezuela; Guatemala City, Guatemala; Havana, Cuba; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, Mexico; Montevideo, Uruguay; Quito, Ecuador; San José, Costa Rica; Santiago, Chile; and São Paulo, Brazil. Featuring more than 100 photographs by Brazilian photographer Leonardo Finotti and curated by Brazilian architect Michelle Jean de Castro, the exhibition presents modern architecture across Latin America from a new perspective. In Chicago, a city foundational to modern architectural experimentation, the exhibition invites viewers to consider how modern architecture emerged in parallel across Latin America and throughout the Americas."

Design Student Film Festival | April 9–11, Boston

"The inaugural Design Student Film Festival will emphasize cross disciplinary exchange, artist-driven storytelling, and fresh visual perspectives from students in the fields of art, architecture, and design. Taking place April 9-11, 2026 the festival invites undergraduate and graduate students from across the country to submit original short films; narrative, documentary, or animated, up to 15 minutes in length."

Transitioning Worlds | April 20–21, Los Angeles

"Transitioning Worlds is a two-day conference hosted by UCLA AUD, reflecting on the changing global conditions that shape architecture and the evolving pedagogies, practices, and technologies through which AUD continues to engage them. The conference includes a full day of thematic sessions, gathering panels of designers, instigators, and thought leaders to take up and debate the ground shifting beneath us all (Monday, April 20). On Day Two (Tuesday, April 21), we reconvene with a morning workshop and an afternoon student session, interrogating the insights and proposals from Monday's sessions and forecasting what we imagine next."

OBJECTILE ADVENTURES: THE FLOOR, Banham Fellow Exhibition | April 20 – July 26, Buffalo

"The UB School of Architecture and Planning will host a distinguished lineup of scholars, architects, and authors, along with a series of exhibitions, through its Spring 2026 Public Programs. [...] In this installation, a number of Objectiles have made a pause along their journey and taken on the use of 'floor.' Within the paradigm of mass-produced, standardized, new building materials, floors are expected to be flat, neutral, and unobtrusive — background surfaces that support flexible, unspecified activity. But Objectiles are, by their very nature, not neutral. Their idiosyncratic physical characteristics are what telegraph their particular trajectory and make them Object-Projectiles in the first place. When these characteristics are designed into a floor, new affordances emerge. Slopes, hinges, ridges, moments of holding or lifting, challenge the idea of the floor as a passive plane and instigate new types of activities and engagement that are shaped by material difference."

Salone del Mobile.Milano 2026 | April 21–26, Milan

"The 2026 Salone del Mobile is back as the star of the design calendar: the leading international event for the design industry will be held from 21st to 26th April, at Milan’s Rho Fiera fairgrounds. Set up in 1961, the trade fair boasts a wide range of furnishing products, distinguished by their expressive power and their functional, technological and material innovation, devised to enhance the domestic scene. Ingenuity, vision, innovation, sustainable excellence and emotion make up the familiar lexicon of the companies and brands that exhibit at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, which has now been proved to be increasingly more global, inclusive and in dialogue with the entire creative and productive furnishing system."

ONGOING EVENTS

He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model | Until December 31, New York City

"He Built This City: Joe Macken’s Model celebrates the extraordinary vision and dedication behind one of the most ambitious handmade representations of New York City ever created. For the first time in New York—Macken’s muse—the artist’s monumental model will be presented to the public at the Museum of the City of New York. Queens-born artist Joe Macken began the project in 2004. Over the next 21 years, working first in Middle Village, Queens, and later in Clifton Park, New York, he devoted himself to crafting a vast architectural portrait of the city he calls home. Built entirely by hand using everyday materials—including balsa wood, cardboard, and glue—the model spans 50 by 27 feet and comprises over 340 individual sections. It renders the city’s skyline, neighborhoods, and landmarks with remarkable precision, character, and imagination."

Iwan Baan: Rome – Las Vegas: Bread and Circuses | Until April 26, Los Angeles

"In 2022, the American Academy in Rome organized From Las Vegas to Rome, an exhibition that revisited the relationship between Rome and Las Vegas through seventy photographs by Iwan Baan. Both cities carry heavily constructed images, and with them, polar assumptions: Las Vegas is surreal, thin, dishonest, new; Rome is authentic, thick, honest, ancient. The exhibition took a transnational look at resonances in architecture, urbanism and the social uses of space between two legendary cities on opposite sides of the Atlantic."

Architecture of Possibility: Zaha Hadid Architects | Until April 10, Shenzhen

"Presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning (MOCAUP) in Shenzhen from 12th December 2025 until 10th April 2026, the Architecture of Possibility: Zaha Hadid Architects exhibition charts the evolution and progress of designs by one of the world’s most influential architecture studios of the past 50 years. ZHA redefined architecture for the 21st century with a repertoire of projects that have captured imaginations across the globe. A journey of discovery into ZHA’s trailblazing architecture, the exhibition examines a series of chronological and thematic narratives that showcase ZHA’s pioneering, multidisciplinary research and design methodologies."

Hip Hop By Design: Celebrating a Decade of The Hip Hop Architecture Camp | Until April 24, Dallas

"Hip Hop By Design invites you to explore the impact of The Hip Hop Architecture Camp, a program that uses Hip Hop culture to introduce young people to architecture, design, and the built environment. Through student projects, professional works, and multimedia installations, the exhibition highlights how music, culture, and lived experience influence the design of cities and communities. Learn about the influential work of Michael Ford, FAIA, NOMA, widely known as The Hip Hop Architect, and the program’s alumni, whose projects demonstrate how Hip Hop can function as both cultural expression and a design methodology shaping spaces, objects, and experiences."

The House Transformed | Until May 22, Brooklyn

"Following its debut at the Princeton University School of Architecture, The House Transformed presents new ideas for domestic architecture. Featuring participants from local and global contexts, the exhibition rejects conventional notions of nuclear family and a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to the house. These models and drawings explore alternative concepts for collective living, multigenerational households, and caregiving."

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