OMA/Progress opens with a caveat: ‘the problem with architecture exhibitions is that they can’t show what they promise: architecture.’ Thankfully, the Barbican offers the perfect backdrop; monumental and at times overwhelming, labyrinthine and confusing, the still controversial space encapsulates many of the issues approached in the exhibition.

Key to our conception of the show is the feeling of infiltration. The exhibition’s curator, the Belgian collective Rotor, has been granted access to the offices and computer servers of Dutch architecture firm OMA, and has appropriated its exhibits from architectural models and discarded confidential documents. Curation by an external body, rather than OMA itself, allows for an interesting critique of the practice. For example, we find a glossy catalogue of corporate interiors with its pages made from Zebrano wood - a material which, according to the accompanying text, originates from an endangered species of tree. Rotor manages to communicate the enormity of the task of interpreting the swathes of material available to them; they suggest that the clay forms, which open up the first room, could either be designs for a futuristic building, or structures moulded like Play-Doh by an architect in a moment of distraction. At its heart is a large, tilted screen, across which a myriad of images flash at a nauseating pace, displaying the contents of OMA’s image servers in New York, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, and Beijing. If we were to watch every photograph played without pause, we would be standing in the Barbican for 48 hours, mimicking our everyday experience in the age of information.

OMA/Progress is an ambitious show, which attempts to confront key questions we are faced with today; the rise of China, environmental change, the importance of preserving the past while continuing to grow. Ultimately it succeeds admirably in its curator’s aim: ‘we invite you to think for yourselves.’

Until Feb 19

REBECCA WALL