Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-263)

Introduction : the architecture exhibition in context -- I. The biennale is dead, long live the biennale! -- II. Addressing the exhibition paradox -- III. The beginning of the end and the end of the beginning

"Exhibiting the postmodern traces the origins and significance of the First International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. Situating the 1980 exhibition The presence of the past against the larger historical backdrop in which architecture exhibitions appear, and considering their proliferation in the postmodern era, this book claims that the exhibition, beyond heralding a shift in the history of curating, marked both the beginning of the end, and the end of the beginning of the postmodern turn in architecture. Looking at the institutional changes, exhibitions techniques and exhibitions spaces, as well as the discourse and controversies between advocates of the modern and postmodern architecture, this book narrates the development of the architectural exhibitions as a 'genre' of culture manifestations, while expanding on both the history of the Venice Architecture Biennale- and, more general, the Italian architecture in the 1970's- and the history of postmodernism. It also reveals how the 1980 Venice Architecture Biennale announced a changing relationship between the worlds of art and architecture, and the consequent transformation of the architectural product as end object"--Page 2 of cover