PITTSBURGH, PA.- The Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of  Art presents Lebbeus Woods: Experimental Architecture, the most  comprehensive American exhibition ever of works by one of the most  innovative and internationally acclaimed experimental architects working  today. The exhibition, on view through January 16, 2005, is presented as  an engulfing architectural experience, designed and installed by Woods  and organized in collaboration with Carnegie Museum of Art curator of  architecture, Tracy Myers. A dozen projects dating from 1987 to the  present are represented in the exhibition through models, original  drawings, photographs, and mural-sized digital reproductions of  drawings. The exhibition also features a new, site-specific installation  that Woods describes as a "drawing in space." 

"The proposals of Lebbeus Woods are at the forefront of experimental  work, and it is our distinct pleasure to present this installation at  the Heinz Architectural Center," says Richard Armstrong, the Henry J.  Heinz II director at Carnegie Museum of Art. 

Better known abroad than in his native United States, Lebbeus Woods is a  theorist who has devoted his career to creating radical new forms of  space that are responsive to the uncertainty and continual shifts of  contemporary society. Though speculative, his work is grounded in  real-world conditions and meant to provoke new ways of thinking. The  exhibition is a physical manifestation of his ideas. 

"The kind of work that Lebbeus Woods does is very important to the  architectural profession," Myers says, "and the sorts of questions he  engages should be of interest to anyone who cares about the future of  culture and society. In much the manner that scientific exploration  advances understanding even when it produces inconclusive results,  experimental architecture stretches the limits of what is thought to be  tectonically possible despite the fact that it seldom produces buildings  in the conventional sense. We encourage exhibition visitors to similarly  stretch their minds and embrace Woods’ challenging but stimulating ideas." 

The Heinz Architectural Center’s exhibition spaces consist of a long  "spine" corridor from which three small galleries and one large gallery  radiate. Because the spaces vary in scale and shape, the exhibition is  not installed in a uniform manner throughout the galleries but instead  is conceived as a variety of experiences. A video interview of Woods  located near the Center’s main entrance provides the context for the  exhibition and an understanding of the architect and his work. Beyond  the video there are no explanatory materials, and the visitor is left to  a uniquely thought-provoking experience of what Woods calls "visual and  spatial energy." 

The first small gallery contains Berlin Free Zone, Woods’ 1991 series of  drawings that were created after the breaking down of the Berlin Wall.  In them, Woods questions the social shifts in the newly reunited city  and creates "freespaces"–individual "living labs" whose functions are  determined by their users, rather than by the architect, and which come  together into loosely formed and continuously changing communities. The  24 enlarged digital reproductions in this gallery are arranged  end-to-end and shown as a frieze that is 76 feet long and 23 inches high. 

Woods is an extraordinary draftsman, and the second small gallery houses  23 original drawings from Aerial Paris (1989) and several of Woods  projects for Sarajevo (1993–1994). In the former, freespaces are held  aloft from Paris by Earth’s electromagnetic field. The latter propose  reconstructing the war-damaged city of Sarajevo by "healing" the ruined  sections of buildings using elements made from the remnants of the  destruction, so that they serve as signs of survival and reinvention. In  both cases, Woods advocates living experimentally when new conditions  demand it. "Experimental architecture is not for everyone," he says. "It  is for people whose lives have been transformed by an experience."