Visionary Drawings: Architecture and Planning

The Drawing Center celebrated its second anniversary with a major exhibition of drawings of visions for a future world, directed by Professor George Collins of Columbia University. Visionary Drawings: Architecture and Planning presented more than 100 drawings by architects and designers. The drawings in this exhibition, many of which had never before been shown, presented a survey of how architectural conceptions of the future had varied and expanded during the 20th century. The works ranged from drawings of buildings and structures to town plans, which had been created during the early 20th century. The exhibition also displayed the great creative outburst which had occurred in the 1960s, where drawings of megastructures, artificial container life-systems, and floating structures were created.

Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Sant'Elia, Neutra, Ferriss, and Mendelsohn were among the well-known earlier architects whose work was included, and their visionary drawings often revealed little-known facets of their oeuvre. More recent drawings by Frei Otto, Paolo Soleri, Buckminster Fuller, Archigram of England, Superstudio of Italy, the Metabolists of Japan, the French and Austrian visionaries, and others showed how present concerns and future visions had been modified.

Visionary Drawings: Architecture and Planning was accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with text by Professor George Collins and contributions by a number of designers and scholars who had assisted him. It was published and distributed by MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Drawing Center also offered a series of evening lectures to explore the social and political implications of utopian ideas. Lectures were given by: Reyner Banham, Kenneth Frampton, Herbert Gans, Percival Goodman, Leo Marx, and George Collins.

The exhibition was circulated by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service from 1979 through 1981.