A team of camouflage artists at work at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, illustration in Robert P. Breckenridge, Modern Camouflage: The New Science of Protective Concealment, 1942.
McGill University Library, Montreal.



An interesting exhibition is currently happening at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War documents the extensive contribution of architecture to the war between the bombings of Guernica in 1937 and Hiroshima in 1945, and considers how this questioned architectural methods and construction technologies, and lead to the supremacy of modernism. The armies of World War Two represented only the tips of colliding icebergs, the belligerent nations which had mobilized and transformed themselves for a global “war of production” of unprecedented scale.



Dates: 13 April to 18 September 2011

Visiting the exhibition, we were quite impressed with the aproach curator Jean-Louis Cohen who brought cohesiveness to an event covering a multitude of topics that don't necessarily relate to each other, but unifying them under the contextual theme of World War 2.

My Mu (Watashi No Mu) Isamu Naguchi 1950, Courtesy of Naguchi Museum

Focusing on the dynamic relationship between craft and design, Crafting Modernism: Mid-Century American Art and Design showcases the bold new directions taken in media and aesthetics during the postwar years.

Organized by the Museum of Arts and Design, and on view from October 11, 2011 through January 15, 2012, this historic exhibition is the fourth part of an ongoing series of shows for the The Centenary Project—the first in-depth examination of American craft in the 20th century. The first three exhibitions were presented at the Museum between 1993 and 1995.

Co-curated by Jeannine Falino and Jennifer Scanlan, Crafting Modernism underscores the growth and transformation of American life during the turbulent 1960s through art, craft, and design. Featuring the work of more than 160 artists and designers, including iconic figures such as Wendell Castle, Sheila Hicks, and Jack Lenor Larsen, and lesser-known, though highly influential artists and designers such as Katherine Choy, and Hui Ka Kwong, Crafting Modernism will demonstrate through furniture, textiles, tableware, ceramics, glass, jewelry, sculpture and painting, how the period between 1945 and 1969 proved a key transitional era for American craft and design. A scholarly 360-page catalogue, published by Harry N. Abrams, will accompany the exhibition.