Exhibition - Breakthrough: Housing Futures

[Matthew Heins]

The exhibition "Breakthrough: Housing Futures" is at the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago until April 19. It looks interesting. Despite the word "futures," the exhibition is largely about something in the past: Operation Breakthrough, an attempt in the late 60s and early 70s to construct more factory-built, modular housing in the U.S.

The exhibition's web page is at https://nphm.org/exhibition/breakthrough-housing-futures/. Their press release is at https://nphm.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/NPHM-PR-BREAKTHROUGH.pdf.

An excellent article about the exhibition and Operation Breakthrough (with good images) is at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-03-12/chicago-s-national-public-housing-museum-revisits-hud-operation-breakthrough?srnd=phx-citylab.

And in other news...architect Smiljan Radic Clarke won the Pritzker Prize (now arguably tainted by scandal). See https://www.archdaily.com/1039553/smiljan-radic-clarke-receives-the-2026-pritzker-prize-the-artist-of-unspoken-architecture and https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/style/pritzker-prize-winner-smiljan-radic.