Open Access: Exploring 130 Years of American Design

Open Access: Exploring 130 Years of American Design is an exhibition at Van Alen Institute's Brooklyn space that invites five artists and design teams to respond to the institute's historic archive. Van Alen Institute has spent more than 130 years at the intersection of design ambition and civic life, and its archive of competition boards, jury records, travel logs, and correspondence is one of the most extensive records of American architectural history. Working directly with these materials, the participants ask what the archive reveals about who design has historically served and whom it has erased, through works such as sonic installations summoning uncredited voices and core samples grounding architecture in land history. Visitors are invited to explore the exhibition with curiosity and skepticism, treating the archive as living material to be questioned and reinterpreted.