The Institutional Act

Institutions are power. They channel directions, focus attention. They are, without want of explanation, important. They are vessels that collect, exhibit, examine, support and critique. They are arbiters of taste, formers of knowledge. They are the dreamweavers of our cultural imagination.

But more than capturing and captivating, and as part of their economic and intellectual capacity, many contemporary institutions of architecture are producers. Those that don’t simply process and filter but are participating in a critical form of space-shaping. In the expanded field of architecture where architectural acts are beyond buildings, contemporary institutions are more at home amongst practitioners than critics.