New Affiliates reimagines houses by Bruce Goff, an eccentric midcentury American architect

Material Worlds, at the Art Institute of Chicago through March 29, is a romp through the work of Bruce Goff, architecture’s “Michelangelo of kitsch.” The exhibition was assembled by curators Alison Fisher and Craig Lee and designed by New Affiliates. (The New York–based firm is on AN’s Twenty to Watch list this year.) A spin-off show, New Affiliates on Goff’s Domestic Matter, also curated by Lee, showcases three architectural drawings by the office that reimagine homes by Goff. Originally made in 2024 for the Beta Architecture Biennial, while it was also designing the Goff exhibition, the cartoon-inspired scenes explode the buildings’ geometry to investigate its origins and relationships. Goff’s make-do attitude meant his works “repurposed everyday materials from consumer, industrial, and military uses.” In the drawing Shin’enKan, Revisited, the cellophane used in a skylight sculpture within a residence in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is linked to its origins in petrochemical manufacturing and its everyday use as supermarket wrapping. New Affiliates’s pieces were recently acquired by the museum and are on view in Chicago through May 18.