Exposed Architecture: Exhibitions, Interludes and Essays by LIGA
Park Books, 2018
Paperback, 312 pages

Five years ago, coinciding with a couple conferences on architectural exhibitions, I did a short survey of venues devoted to architecture for World-Architects. With only eleven institutions, the survey was far from comprehensive, though it made up for this with a diversity of locales and approaches to displaying architecture. One of the youngest ? two years old at the time of publication ? of the bunch was LIGA, Space for Architecture in Mexico City, which I had only marginal knowledge of at the time. An "uneven balance between lots of construction and no discussion" in Latin America led to the creation of LIGA and made it "a necessary platform to create a local architectural culture." Amazingly, the ambitious impetus of LIGA and its diverse seasonal programming (four exhibitions per year) took place in a corner storefront of only 160 square meters (photos below, though LIGA's website hints at an impending move to, I'm assuming, larger digs elsewhere in Mexico City).
[LIGA at Av. Insurgentes Sur 348, Mexico City CP 06700. Photo: Ramiro Chaves]

Exposed Architecture documents three years of exhibitions at LIGA ? from LIGA 11 to LIGA 22 (all exhibitions have been prefaced by LIGA and the number of the exhibition) ? but does it in a way that is partial yet exploratory. It's partial, because the critical texts provided in the book are extracts fro...