In the 1950s and ’60s an ambitious program of urban revitalization, the so-called Renaissance era, transformed Pittsburgh. Politicians, civic leaders, and architects worked together to reconceive large swaths of the city—including the Point, the Lower Hill, and Allegheny Center—through wide-ranging local and federal initiatives that aimed to address the urban problems that confronted Pittsburgh’s postwar development.

Pittsburgh’s early and rapid industrial growth in the previous century had spawned a series of environmental and social catastrophes, including the notorious pall of smoke that hung dangerously over the city. Urban renewal, and modern planning and architecture, were seen as the appropriate antidotes for a city in crisis. Iconic Pittsburgh projects such as the Gateway Center and the Civic Arena predated those in many other U.S. cities, and the city’s renewal efforts were lauded as an early model for development elsewhere. In the years since, both the city’s modern architecture and the urban planning that spurred its development have largely fallen out of favor, and the built legacy of this era is disappearing.

HACLab Pittsburgh: Imagining the Modern presents both an exhibition and an experimental laboratory that invites you to participate in disentangling the city’s complicated relationship with modern architecture and planning. Over the next nine months, events and activities in the gallery will investigate what took place, what was gained, and what was lost during Pittsburgh’s urban renewal era, and what these histories might suggest for the city’s future.