Events this Weekend: 6.17-6.20

On Tuesday, June 15, 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England. For the show, the V&A invited 19 architects and firms from around the world to design small retreats and choose seven structures to build at full-scale in and around the museum. On display are designs by Studio Mumbai Architects from India, Rintala Eggertsson Architects from Norway, Helen & Hard Architects also from Norway, Vazio S/A from Brazil, Terunobu Fujimori (who we profiled in our May 2009 issue) from Japan, Sou Fujimoto Architects also from Japan, and Rural Studio (a project of which we wrote about in our October 2009 issue) from the United States. The projects range from a wooden tower that holds thousands of books to a "tree" made of sheets of acrylic to a faux garden under five split ash trees. Admission is free so be sure, if you're in the London area this summer, to stop by before the exhibit closes August 30.

Today, Thursday, June 17, Hanging Around: Modern and Contemporary Lighting from the Permanent Collection opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The show explores fixture designs from the years after World War II with works by designers like George Nelson through the 1950s with iconic pieces like Poul Henningsen's PH series to the current decade with pendants like Marcel Wander's Zeppelin lamp (left). The exhibition, which runs through October 10, features approximately 20 lamps on display. For our favorites, pick up the new July/August 2010 Energy issue for our Dwell Reports on pendant lights.

Also today, Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary opens at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, Canada. The show features the work of the Greek artist through musical documents and "musically conceived environments." The exhibit, which was on display earlier this year at the Drawing Center in New York, closes at the CCA on October 17 then will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) and be on display November 7 through January 30, 2011.

On Saturday, June 19, Sanaa: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa + works by Walter Niedermayr opens at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. The show puts the spotlight on the Japanese architects who won this year's Pritzker Prize and are and explores their use of light and the relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces. Also on view are photographs by Walter Niedermayr, who has photographed many of Sanaa's buildings, including the Rolex Learning Center (above), which opened earlier this year at the EPFL Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The exhibition is on display through October 1.

Finally, also on Saturday, Looking after Louis Sullivan: Photographs, Drawings, and Fragments opens at the Art Institute of Chicago. The show features the photographs of John Szarkowski, Aaron Siskind, and Richard Nickel, how pointed their cameras to the work of the father of the skyscraper, Sullivan, and helped popularize his work and push it into the spotlight as a precursor for the International Style. The photos are accompanied by drawings and sketched by Sullivan as well as fragments of original buildings by the architect. The exhibit runs through December 12.

And don't forget, Dwell on Design 2010 kicks off in just one week. Join us at the Los Angeles Convention Center June 25-27 for three days of on-stage programming with panels curated and moderated by Dwell editors, an exhibition hall filled with new designs, home tours, and more. Register now by clicking here.

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