BREAKTHROUGH: Housing Futures, National Public Housing Museum, Chicago, November 19, 2025 – April 19, 2026.
This immersive exhibition creates an experimental living room and learning space for conversations about affordable housing futures, past and present. BREAKTHROUGH blends historical documentation of ambitious HUD demonstration projects from the 1970s with new prototypes from The Housing Futures Initiative, led by Alexander Eisenschmidt. This work aims to challenge the social, cultural, and economic conventions of housing by rethinking the design, material, and construction of urban living. Partner of this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Reviews:
Zach Mortice, “Inside the Space-Age Bid to Build Millions of Homes in Factories,” Bloomberg News (March 12, 2026).
Elisa Shoenberger, “The National Public Housing Museum’s New Exhibition Reimagines Affordable Housing, Then and Now,” New City Design (March 6, 2026).
“Rethinking Housing in Chicago and Beyond, …” Mike Stephen of Outside the Loop interviews Eisenschmidt about “Breakthrough” exhibit, WBEZ (November 19, 2025).
“Breakthrough: Housing Futures,” World-Architects.Com (November 19, 2025).
Cristian Recabarren Ortiz, “Operación Breakthrough: la ambiciosa iniciativa que fracasó en revolucionar la vivienda estadounidense,” Redimin (March 22, 2026).
Photographs by Joe Nolasco.