Is Nature Modern?

The exhibition “Is Nature Modern?” examines attitudes toward nature and approaches to ecological thinking in modern architecture and design. Its starting point is the collection of the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO), with its numerous projects, objects, and documentation from the fields of architecture, design, and photography of the 20th century.

This century, particularly in the Global North, was characterized by modernist ideals of progress based on the idea of ​​continuous economic growth and industrial production, which contributed significantly to the depletion of natural resources and global warming. Modernism appears to have drawn a sharp line between nature and society: humankind, with its reason, technology, and planning, placed itself above nature, which it was expected to shape and exploit according to its needs. In architecture and design, too, nature was primarily understood as something that had to be regulated, controlled, exploited, or even overcome—as a raw material for human progress.

The exhibition critically examines this polarization. Using various themes (trees, organic structures, architecture and the environment, the city as an organism, and ecological knowledge) and interventions by contemporary artists, the exhibition presents diverse projects and approaches that address questions of nature, the environment, and landscape, dissolving the (apparent) dividing line between nature and culture. Within the context of socialist Yugoslavia, a substantial body of modernist work emerged, characterized by social ambitions. This work differed significantly from universal modernism; in particular, architects integrated diverse folk traditions as well as landscape and regional characteristics, understanding nature and the local environment in a way that brought architecture closer to environmental science.

This exhibition and research project was developed in collaboration between the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) in Zagreb, and the MAO, and aims to re-examine museum collections of modernism. The exhibition is therefore not a systematic, comprehensive historical overview, but rather a reflection that questions the established understanding of modernity and offers food for thought on how to engage with the past in light of current challenges.

The climate crisis is more acute and undeniable today than ever before. Therefore, the project, through its accompanying program, also seeks to reflect on current discourses about sustainability and climate justice and to raise the question of the extent to which earlier approaches are still relevant today. In this sense, nature is modern precisely because we must constantly rethink its significance and consider it in our actions within the context of our time and the urgency of our present.

Opening: December 18, 2025, 7 p.m.

Guided tour:
December 21, 2025, 11 a.m. – Maja Vardjan and Cvetka Požar
Creative workshop:

December 21, 2025, 11 a.m. – Pop-up greeting card “Trees”