FORMGIVING in Photos

John Hill
12. June 2019
Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj (All photographs courtesy of DAC)

The photos of FORMGIVING – An Architectural Future History from the BIG Bang to Singularity give the impression that the exhibition is as big as – if not larger that – Hot to Cold, which was on display at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, four years ago. That exhibition used geography to organize the many BIG projects, though BIG and DAC took a different approach, using time to organize FORMGIVING. The exhibition's three chapters – Past, Present, and Future – give visitors a glimpse at buildings designed by BIG but also an understanding of the firm's "formgiving" philosophy that arises from the Danish word formgivning, which means to give form to something that has not yet been given form.

DAC is located in BLOX, a mixed-use building in Copenhagen designed by OMA. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
The exhibition takes visitors "on a journey across time to sense how the world around us has been shaped, from the past to the present and beyond." (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
This journey is enabled by a color coding that stretches throughout the exhibition ... (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
... and its multiple levels. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
The colored paths lead to different colored spaces ... (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
... where images hung from above define smaller galleries with images and models. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
The blue "Lift" gallery presents, as the name would indicate, 2WTC, among other projects. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
Logically, the hanging images increase in size as they rise and get farther away from eye level. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
Bjarke Ingels opening the exhibition at DAC on June 12, 2019. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
BIG's model of Lower Manhattan in the year 2050 was also part of the FREESPACE exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
BIG's love of LEGO is well known, so it makes sense that Formgiving has a gallery where kids – and AFOLs – can see BIG buildings in LEGO form and also build with the toy blocks. (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)
FORMGIVING = Overwhelming (Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj)

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