Mounting a show on architecture in an art museum, in which the primary object, the architecture itself, is never able to be seen or occupied or otherwise experienced, is antithetical to the museum’s purpose. The one-to-one relationship we strive for in experiencing works of art, viewer to object viewed, is not the same as that involved in experiencing works of architecture. Those who consent to exhibit architecture as art have agreed to a doubly diminishing compromise, whereby secondary materials—drawings, models, photographs, text, and the like—stand in for the work itself while no stand-in can be offered for the first-hand experience of the work. One reason we consent to this arrangement is the fact that the museum is practically the only forum in which architectural education is possible. Another reason is that the attribute of architecture which exhibiting likenesses can never supply—the psychological coming-together of the person...

 

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