Graduate architecture student
Houston, U.S.
www.missing-places.org
Submission: "How well do YOU know your city?"
The Museum for Missing Places (MMP) is a public information project that addresses contemporary issues of urban place identity through the eyes and actions of city residents. Using interactive, dialogue-based exhibits, the Museum proposes alternative ways of mapping a city in the context of rapid and unregulated urban change and the uncertainty of enduring architectural landmarks.
Situated in Houston, Texas, the Museum is--before all else-- a response to a city whose historical continuity has long been defined paradoxically by the impermanence of its architecture rather than its fixity. Houston is literally formed from a never-ending series of geographic disruptions-- the buildings of the city are quickly altered, roadwork and redirected streets are the norm and volatile weather continuously pummels the city, to cite just a few examples.
The Museum for Missing Places is an attempt to chart the shifting terrain of the city through a process as fleeting as the city itself. As a museum in the traditional sense, this project is about gathering, ordering and exhibiting information in various mediums and formats. What distinguishes the information exhibited here is its specificity to Houston's elusive urbanism and that it's gathered through an expanding body of public surveys designed by the Museum and situated in Houston's public places. So, in the end, this Museum is not so typical. It currently resides on the internet at www.missing-places.org and in the various public surveys wherever they may be sited, and will be presented in the form of a large exhibition at a physical location in January 2006.
Bio:
The Museum for Missing Places was created in September 2005 by Eric Leshinsky: a designer, writer, artist and a master's degree candidate in architecture at the Rice School of Architecture, Houston, TX.
"2.5 million tried to escape as Hurricane Rita closed on Houston"
Cindy Horswell and Edward Hegstrom, “Evacuation,” Houston Chronicle, September 29, 2005, HYPERLINK "http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/topfront/3374468.html" (accessed February 1, 2006).