John Andrews: Architect of Uncommon Sense

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posted on 2025-06-12, 03:31 authored by PAUL WALKERPAUL WALKER, Kevin Liu

John Andrews: Architect of Uncommon Sense is an exhibition of the projects of the architect John Andrews undertaken in Canada, the United States and Australia. The exhibition was staged at Harvard's Graduate School of Design to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of Gund Hall, designed by Andrews 1968-1972.

History

Add to Elements

NTRO Output Type

Curated Exhibition, Event or Festival

NTRO Output Category

Curated Exhibition, Event or Festival : Exhibition/event

Place

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Venue

Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

NTRO Publisher

Graduate School of Design, Harvard University

Start Date

2022-10-28

End Date

2022-12-22

Medium

exhibition curating, designing & writing

Research Statement

The intent of the exhibition ‘John Andrews: Architect of Uncommon Sense’ was to assess the significance of the design career of the architect by bringing together visual evidence of his achievements in Canada, the United States and Australia. In doing so it examined the limits and opportunities of international design practice in an era just before economic globalisation. Assembling drawings and photographs of Andrews’s principal projects across diverse geographies demonstrated that in his designs there were consistent responses to place and architecture as human habitat so that it transcends the usual distinctions between modernism and postmodernism. Moreover, the exhibition brought into view for a contemporary audience the ongoing development of environmental strategies dating from long before the contemporary discourse on sustainability. By including photographs of buildings in their current state, it also made apparent how much risk is faced by late modern architecture. The exhibition was reviewed very favorably in The Architects' Newspaper (New York), 20 December 2022. See Anthony Paletta, 'Up North and Down Under: An Exhibition at Harvard GSD Surveys the Impressive Career of Australian Modernist John Andrews', https://www.archpaper.com/2022/12/exhibition-harvard-gsd-surveys-australian-modernist-john-andrews/ Paletta writes 'Andrews’s talent is now receiving its proper due in an excellent exhibit, John Andrews: Architect of Uncommon Sense, installed in his own Gund Hall, home of Harvard GSD. Curated by Paul Walker and Kevin Liu and drawing on all sorts of archival materials, plus recent photos by Chicago-based artist Noritaka Minami, it’s an impressive showing.'

Size or Duration of Work

2 months

Affiliation

Paul Walker, University of Melbourne