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Incoming exhibition

How Modern : Biographies of Architecture in China 1949-1979

from Oct 16, 2025 to Mar 15, 2026
Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)

The exhibition How Modern: Biographies of Architecture in China 1949-1979, produced and curated in collaboration with M+ Museum in Hong Kong, reconsiders these assumptions. The exhibition takes the multimedia documentation of architectural production under the socialist Chinese regime as a point of departure, illuminating specific social and cultural microhistories that are not evident in purely textual historical sources. These social biographies of projects—characterized by material and technical inventiveness, continuities and discontinuities with social, economic, and political inclinations, and direct and indirect influences from within and beyond the Eastern bloc—challenge prevailing assessments of design and architectural practice in Mao’s China as monolithic, hermetic, and autocratic.

Examining more nuanced histories and narratives behind projects from the undocumented perspectives of design institutes, architects, and inhabitants, the exhibition extends the CCA’s research into new readings of modern architecture and practice across different geographies, cultures and sociopolitical contexts.

The exhibition is organized by the CCA in collaboration with M+, Hong Kong.

Curator: Shirley Surya, M+, Hong Kong
Research: Li Hua, Southeast University, Nanjing
Curatorial team: Francesco Garutti, Megan Marin, Charlie-Anne Côté, Victoria Addona, CCA, and Naomi Altman, M+, Hong Kong
Exhibition design: Johnston Marklee, Los Angeles
Graphic design: Alan Woo, Berlin
Design development: Sébastien Larivière, Anh Truong

Exhibition

Incoming

Prices

Adult : $10.00
Seniors : $7.00
Students, children, Friends of the CCA : Free

Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)

Address

Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA)
1920, Baile street,
Montreal, QC H3H 2S6

Regular Schedule

From Jan 1 to Dec 31
Monday
Closed
Tuesday
Closed
Wednesday
11:00 - 18:00
Thursday
11:00 - 21:00
Friday
11:00 - 18:00
Saturday
11:00 - 18:00
Sunday
11:00 - 18:00

Holidays Schedule

Holidays follow the regular schedule

Facilities

Museum’s Exhibition(s)

Temporary exhibition
from Nov 15, 2024 to Mar 23, 2025
Being There: Photography in Arthur Erickson's Early Travel Diaries
The exhibition examines Arthur Erickson’s exchanges with people, places, landscapes, buildings, rituals, and ideas during his early travels in Europe and North Africa between 1950 and 1952, and in Asia in 1961. Drawing on a prescient understanding of site and environment, Erickson was convinced that architecture must be experienced to be understood. He knew that travel and the privilege of being present in different places would be a lifelong preoccupation and crucial to his continuing growth as an architect and thinker.
Temporary exhibition
from Dec 11, 2024 to May 25, 2025
To Build Law
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Incoming exhibition
from Apr 25, 2025 to Oct 26, 2025
Oscillating Spaces
The Rhône Glacier, located high in the Swiss Alps and accessible via the Furka Pass, can only be visited from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox, roughly 120 days a year. For the rest of the year, time stays still: the pass is closed, the landscape is covered with snow, and there are no human visitors. Despite the limited time it can be accessed, the Rhône Glacier and the Furka Pass are layered with natural and cultural histories. The site is shaped by the entanglement between the environment, spirituality, and local traditions; the genesis of glaciology; military and transportation infrastructure; Alpine tourism; and the construction of the sublime.
Incoming exhibition
from Mar 19, 2025 to Nov 30, 2025
Records of Protest
Architecture is a political medium. Buildings define social relations and reify power dynamics. In turn, the profession has an immense capacity to either maintain hegemonic value systems or propose new orders. The Groundwork series, currently on display in our Main Galleries, features the ongoing political endeavours of contemporary architects. Their stories demonstrate approaches to advocacy and activism in face of ecological collapses and social crises. While their processes are represented in this series through documentary film and research fragments, Records of Protest is a display of archival material from the CCA Collection exploring how architects in the past engaged with crises of their time.