150 Years of Design: The AIA Houston Collection

August 31 - August 15,2025

From the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: "Since 1999, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has collaborated with the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects to fund and build an AIA Design Collection at the museum. The collection encompasses international architect-designed objects made since 1880, particularly furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, lighting, and industrial design. The year-long exhibition 150 Years of Design: The AIA Houston Collection celebrates the 25th anniversary of this exceptional collaboration, which is the only one of its kind in the US. On view beginning August 31, 2024 in the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building for modern and contemporary art, the show presents the majority of objects funded by the AIA since the inception of the collaboration. A digital catalogue with scholarly object entries, an introduction to the collection and an essay on the importance of architects to design history will be available online. The exhibition coincides with the 85th Annual TxA (Texas Society of Architects) Conference & Design Expo in Houston, October 3-5, 2024. “The MFAH is proud that this collaboration with the Houston chapter of the American Institute of Architects is unique,” commented Cindi Strauss, Sara and Bill Morgan curator, Department of Decorative Arts, Craft and Design. “It demonstrates the commitment Houston architects have to the community as well as their forward thinking. The opportunity to build a first- rate collection of architect-designed material is both challenging and exciting; the museum and Houston’s public have benefitted greatly from this singular partnership.” The idea for the AIA/MFAH collection was developed by Houston architects Carrie Glassman Shoemake and Ernesto Maldonado in consultation with Strauss. In 1999, Glassman Shoemake was involved with the museum’s decorative arts and design acquisitions committee and Maldonado was then AIA board chair. In the first few years, Strauss proposed a selection of objects from which the AIA membership chose acquisitions. Since 2004, the Houston AIA chapter has chosen one architect to honor with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” and funds are raised each year to acquire works for the collection that are in keeping with the honoree’s interests. To date, over $750,000 has been raised with over 60 objects added to the MFAH collection. Past honorees have included Raymond Brochstein, Nonya Grenader, S. I. Morris, William Stern, Carrie Glassman Shoemake and Anderson Todd. The almost 60 objects on view in this anniversary exhibition include rare and limited edition works, such as a sterling-silver flower basket by Josef Hoffmann for the Wiener Werkstätte (c. 1909-10); a Marcel Breuer tubular steel chair (1930-35); sterling silver flatware by Eliel Saarinen (1935); Gerrit Rietveld’s “Zig-Zag”chair (1940); a lamp by Lester Geis (1951); and a Maarten van Severen translucent, molded-plastic chair (2003). In addition, a presentation of architect-designed textiles including examples from the AIA Collection will be on view beginning in October 2024 in the lower level of the Audrey Jones Beck Building."

On View: August 30, 2024 | 12-5 pm

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - MFAH 1001 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005
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