MoMA Architecture Head Goes Back to School

"Barry Bergdoll has decided to step down from his post as Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in September to assume the Meyer Schapiro Chair of Art History and Archeology in Columbia University’s School of the Arts and Sciences," reports Suzanne Stephens. "Bergdoll can take credit for raising the profile of the architecture and design department, with featured exhibitions such as the Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity show in 2009, and such socially conscious investigations as Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling (2008), Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront (2010), and Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream (2012), which he curated with Reinhold Martin."

Writing in The Architect's Newspaper, Alan G. Brake observes that "Bergdoll’s tenure as chair has been marked both by a deepening of the historical and scholarly quality of the exhibitions and programming as well as greater engagement with social issues, such as affordable housing and climate change."

Stephens notes that Bergdoll will "stay on as a part-time curator [at MoMA] while he continues work on the Latin America show planned for 2015."