The 2023–2024 Out of the Box exhibition series is dedicated to the work of Argentinian architect Amancio Williams (1913–1989), a key figure in modern architecture in South America. It follows from an extensive archive of proposals produced and reworked by Williams’s office from the 1940s through the 1980s. The archive, which includes drawings, photographs, correspondence, and models, was donated to the CCA by the Williams family in 2020.

Claudia Shmidt’s reading of the archive focuses on letters both sent and received by Amancio Williams. These letters, written to politicians, leading cultural institutions, and influential architects, help to situate Williams’s practice and elaborate on his persistence in bringing his projects to life. By tracing the course of his correspondence alongside a selection of drawings and publications, the development of Williams’s theories begins to come to the fore.

The Out of the Box: Amancio Williams series is comprised of three exhibitions: from 23 June to 17 September 2023, Studio Muoto presented a reading of the infrastructural dimension of Williams’s work; and from 22 February to 12 May 2024, Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen offer an interpretation of what is likely Williams’s most widely known project, the Casa sobre el Arroyo in Mar del Plata.

Curator: Claudia Shmidt

Project direction: Francesco Garutti

Curatorial research and development: Megan Marin with Anna García Molina

Archive processing: Catherine Jacob

Graphic design: Our Polite Society, Hamburg / Montréal / Stockholm, with Jan Egbers

Design: Anh Truong, Sébastien Larivière

Conservation: Emilie Demers, Anne Gauthier, Daphnée Bouchard

Installation: Catherine Labonté, Michael Eddy, Marie-Hélène Rolko, Philippe Caron-Lefebvre