Home Sweet Home
PITTSBURGH — Home is a word that can conjure images of everything from a stately mansion, to an apartment building, to a child's treetop refuge. More than simply a house, a home is at once the focus of domestic aspirations and the outward expression of them, however modest or grand.
Garnered from the collection of the Heinz Architectural Center at Carnegie Museum of Art, "Imagining Home: Selections from the Heinz Architectural Center" presents more than 125 drawings, models, books and games that reveal ways the home has been envisioned over the last 200 years.
Among the subjects explored are the range of styles in residential architecture, innovative construction technologies, interiors, company-built housing, and how the contemporary house has evolved over time.
Architectural models, drawings, and other objects from the collection are supplemented by photography, video and two new works of installation art.
The exhibition includes a group of 15 plaster models of houses from around the world that were produced by the Museum Extension Project, a Depression-era work-relief program that originated in Pennsylvania.
"Imagining Home" is rounded out by a section on interiors that includes two newly created installations.
The first is a habitable sculpture of layered draperies created for the exhibition by Sheila Klein. The second is a project by local artist Wendy Osher, who employs embroidery and digital photography to investigate the seductive convenience of prepared foods and the way in which they erode the symbolic value of home cooking and dining.
Four interior views by American photographer Sarah Malakoff pointedly speak to the central objective of the exhibition: provoking thought on the places we call home. Shot between 2003 and 2008, the photographs document exceptional and eccentric home interiors, including a nautically themed basement wet bar designed to mimic the prow of an actual boat, and a dining area furnished with a diner booth in lieu of a conventional table and chairs.
Activities associated with this exhibit include:
• House-Warming Weekend, March 26 and 27.
• Architects and Clients: Building Images of Home, 6 to 7:30 p.m. March 26 in the CMA Theater.
• Imagining Home Activity Day, noon to 4 p.m. March 27. Free with museum admission. Visitors may take photos of their homes or yards for free 15-minute consultations with architects, landscape architects and interior designers from the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh's RenPlan program. Drop by or sign up in advance by calling the RenPlan program coordinator at 412-391-4333.
The "Imagining Home" exhibit continues through May 30.
For more information, call 412-622-3131 or visit the Web site, www.cmoa.org.
