Hasta La Ideas

Volkswagen “Transparent Factory,” Dresden, Germany, Henn Architects, 2001. Photograph courtesy Henn Architects. A car in the harness at the final stages of production.

On September 13th, Canada’s Design Museum—the Design Exchange (DX)—announces the opening of Vertical Urban Factory, an intriguing exhibit curated by New York-based architectural historian and critic Nina Rappaport. The exhibit studies, chronologically, factories around the world in search of inspired design and inventive architecture. While the exhibition celebrates design, it hopes to inspire visitors to re-consider the function of factories in future self-sustainable cities. With the economy in its current state, Rappaport believes this idea has the potential to create and keep manufacturing jobs domestic, something that seems novel in our globalized economy.

The progression of factory design will be on display along a time line from the very beginning up through the 20th century, with more than 30 projects and 200 photographs, models, diagrams and films on display. Specifically, Vertical Urban Factory will look at boundary-pushing city factories—from Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory in Dresden where passersby can actually watch the cars being manufactured, to the definition of functional structure at Henry Ford’s Highland Park in Detroit.

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