In partnership with AIA New York, the Center for Architecture offers tours of its rotating exhibitions on a wide range of topics in architecture and design.
Since its opening in 2003, the Center for Architecture has partnered with independent curators, city agencies, non-profit organizations, cultural institutions, and private companies to create exhibitions that attract diverse audiences and influence how the public experiences architecture and design.
Exhibition tours can offer opportunities for the general public or private groups to engage with New York City’s built environment. Questions? Please reach out to our Exhibitions and Programs team here.
Exhibition Programs
Fall Exhibitions Opening Night
In-Person - Student with Valid ID: Free
In-Person - General Public: Free
Please join us for the opening night celebration of three exhibitions—Humanist modernity, Dark Matter U: Justice, Pedagogy, Design, and Why Design?—that will be on view at the Center for Architecture from October 1, 2026–March 27, 2027. The evening will include remarks from each exhibition team as well as mingling and light refreshments! Opening night is also the unofficial kickoff of Archtober, New York City's month-long celebration of architecture and design.
Nowicki’s Unbuilt Chandigarh: An Ecology of Everyday Life
In-Person - Student with Valid ID: Free
In-Person - General Public: Free
This program is offered as part of the Center for Architecture exhibition Humanist modernity: Maciej and Stanisława Nowicki, on view October 1, 2026—March 27, 2027.
Modern architecture gradually separated buildings from their climatic and social contexts. The consequences of this shift can be seen around the world today in architecture that depends on energy-intensive mechanical systems rather than engaging productively with climate through passive design strategies
Maciej Nowicki's plan for Chandigarh, developed with Albert Mayer and left unbuilt after his death in 1950, treated shade, orientation and planting as the framework for daily life rather than as technical corrections to it. Read alongside Stanisława and Maciej Nowicki's wider body of work, it describes a modernism in which the response to climate and the response to community are the same design decision.
Speakers:
Kacper Kępiński, Deputy Director, National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning (NIAiU) in Warsaw
Karolina Częczek, Principal, Only If; Critic, Yale School of Architecture
More speakers to be announced.
Exhibition Tour of Humanist modernity: Maciej and Stanisława Nowicki
In-Person - Student with Valid ID: Free
In-Person - General Public: Free
Join us for an exhibition tour of Humanist modernity: Maciej and Stanisława Nowicki—on view at the Center for Architecture from October 1, 2026–March 27, 2027—with curator Kacper Kępiński.
Humanist modernity, presented in collaboration with the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning in Poland, showcases the work of Stanisława Sandecka-Nowicka and Maciej (Matthew) Nowicki, two significant figures in the history of American and Polish architecture. Named for a concept developed in the 1940s by architects Maciej (Matthew) Nowicki and Stanisława Sandecka-Nowicka, Humanist modernity explores their vision of modernism as a human-centered approach to design—one concerned with understanding who a building is really for, and how it binds a human being to the space around them. The exhibition follows this idea across their work and asks what their architecture offers us today.
Speaker:
Kacper Kępiński, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning (NIAiU) in Warsaw