Humanist modernity: Maciej and Stanisława Nowicki — Center for Architecture, New York, 1 October 2026 – 27 March 2027

Maciej Nowicki — Matthew, in America — died at forty in a plane crash on his way back from a job site in India, and architectural history has tended to file him as a brilliant interruption. His wife and partner Stanisława Sandecka-Nowicka lived another career: in 1963 she became the first woman in the United States appointed a full professor of architecture, at the University of Pennsylvania, taught there until her retirement in 1977 and received the AIA medal in 1978. Humanist modernity at the Center for Architecture is the first exhibition to present the two of them as equal creative partners, following their work across Europe, America and India through drawings, buildings, graphics and structural design.

The title names their shared conviction: a human-centred modernism, concerned with understanding who a building is really for and how it binds a person to the space around them — a position that set them apart from the more doctrinaire modernists of their generation. The exhibition is curated by Kacper Kępiński, deputy director of the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning in Warsaw, which is the Center’s partner for the show. It is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.

Practical details

• Dates: 1 October 2026 – 27 March 2027
• Where: Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY 10012, United States
• Organised by: Center for Architecture, in partnership with the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning, Warsaw; curator Kacper Kępiński
• Admission and hours: see the Center’s website; not published on the exhibition page at the time of writing. Telephone 212-683-0023

Cultural Heritage Online lists this exhibition for readers who follow the Polish contribution to twentieth-century architecture and the modern movement’s quieter, humanist strand. The Center for Architecture closed its exhibition on Gerrit Rietveld on 2 September 2026; this is its autumn programme.