ABSTRACT
An architectural exhibition is often regarded as a medium in which finished products or
artefacts are displayed as if outside or beyond the actual production process. Contrary to
this notion, in this chapter I will portray the architectural exhibition as an integral part of the
production of architecture. When architects deliberately use exhibitions to engage in
‘theoretical, spatial and material speculations’,1 when they test ‘the real before the real’,2
as Peter Smithson has phrased it, then one can speak of the architectural exhibition as a
form of laboratory. The laboratory exhibition is here defined as a continuation and integral
part of the architectural praxis. It is predominantly driven and generated by architects. It is
process oriented and projects into the future praxis of architecture. Most importantly, the
laboratory exhibition provides a testing ground in which architectural research is con-
ducted. It is concerned with the investigation, development and experimentation of hith-
erto un-imagined, un-tested, un-established architectural propositions. While the
laboratory exhibition can have very different forms and use different locales, this chapter
concentrates on one specific form of experimentation within the wider scope of architec-
tural laboratory exhibitions – namely the architectural installation.
