Events this Weekend: 4.8-4.11

Thursday is the final day to view Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary at the Drawing Center in New York. The show opened January 14 to highlight the paper works of the Green composer and designer and includes close to 100 pieces, ranging from hand-rendered music scores to architectural drawings. If you can't make it to the show, check out this slideshow of his drawings. 

Over the weekend, Phoenix homes--as well as the Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts--open their doors for Return to Paradise: the 6th Annual Modern Phoenix Home Tour and Expo. Though tickets to the home tours have sold out, there are a smattering of other events--show floor exhibitions, seminars by prominent local architects--to attend throughout the weekend. View the full itinerary at modernphoenix.net.

At the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, it's the final weekend for The Exploded City, which opened on January 24 and displays imagined metropolises created by artist Ahmet Öğüt. The modeled scenes features buildings and structures that have been involved in acts of violence and terrorism during the past 20 years. While you're there, be sure to visit Thom Faulders: BAMscape.

At the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration also closes this weekend. The show, which opened February 13, is a tribute to the German designer's work, especially his Homage to the Square series. If you can't make it to the show, view our slideshow of images from the exhibition.

Finally, China Prophecy: Shanghai, which opened at the Skyscraper Museum in New York on June 24, 2009, ends its run on Sunday. The exhibition examines the Chinese metropolis (which will play host to the 2010 Expo this summer), its growth, and its architecture and infrastructure. If you can't make it to the show, take the virtual walkthrough at skyscraper.org.

There is, however, one opening we'd be remiss to not mention. Other Space Odesseys: Gren Lynn, Michael Maltzan, Alessandro Poli opens Thursday at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal. The exhibition explores solutions for space travel, habitation, and experiments by looking at how a colony in space could find its grounding in a world without gravity, a proposal for a new Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, and repeated showings of the 1972 film Architettura Interplanetaria by Superstudio, of which Poli was a member. The exhibit opens Thursday and runs through September 6.

Know of a great modern art, architecture, or design exhibition or event that should be added to our online calendar? Submit your suggestions here.