Over a period of five years, an international group of curators and scholars focused on the critical ideas and historical moments that have shaped architecture and urban design throughout the twentieth century. After intensive and collaborative discussions to prepare a conceptual framework for presenting 20th century architecture, their efforts culminated with a vision: At the End of the Century: 100 Years of Architecture. This important exhibition surveyed the architectural terrain of the last century from the vantage point of the new millennium's beginning. Thematically organized into twenty-one sections, the exhibition presented a dynamic sequence of episodes, movements, and currents that offer a global panorama of the visions and achievements in architecture and urban design. The exhibition provided a historical context as well as a pluralistic perspective for understanding contemporary developments. Focusing attention on the built environment, from the macrocosm of ideal cities, urban utopias, and capital developments to the microcosm of domestic living.
At the End of the Century examines how architecture is itself an art of the future, dependent upon economic, political, social, and demographic factors; changing fashions; as well as aesthetic and cultural directions.