CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago is presenting Germane Barnes: Columnar Disorder, on view from September 21, 2024 through January 27, 2025. For his first solo museum show, the Chicago-born architect recasts the canonical foundations of architecture through the lens of the African diaspora.

The exhibition critically reflects on the enduring architectural legacy of the Classical orders—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—whose distinctive columns continue to proliferate in our built environment today. Barnes upends these long-standing and ubiquitous conventions by reimagining architectural orders that are rooted in global Black experience, history, and values.

His speculative project centers on the design of three new columns, which are presented through drawings, collages, and new sculptural works in a rich material palette that includes marble, brick, wood, and hair. The Identity Column celebrates the Black body and beauty, the Labor Column considers how slavery fueled American economic growth, and the Migration Column recognizes water as a site of Black memory, loss, and selfhood.

“It’s crucial we support emerging architectural voices like Barnes, who is paving the way for the next generation of architects while also inviting new audiences to celebrate the architectural creativity and innovation of the African diaspora,” said Irene Sunwoo, the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design. “This exhibition serves as testament to Barnes’s ambition to radically transform the field.”

Attentive to how Eurocentric histories of Classical architecture have neglected the migration of North African building traditions across the ancient Mediterranean, Barnes’s project seeks to recuperate this legacy. By demanding a reorientation of architectural frameworks, Barnes acknowledges and reveres the historical role of the African diaspora, and provides a space for visitors to envision Africa and its descendants as the future of architecture.

“My research of African diasporic spatial legacies has only emboldened my pride in Black stories and the desperate need for their telling,” Barnes says. “The opportunity to share this work in the city that shaped me is an incredible feeling.”

Germane Barnes: Columnar Disorder is curated by Irene Sunwoo, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design.