Rory Gardiner: Houston, Untitled

The Rice School of Architecture is pleased to announce Houston, Untitled, an exhibition featuring the work of Australian photographer Rory Gardiner, on view from September 25 through December 5, 2026. Presented as part of the Houston Archive Project, the exhibition brings together a series of photographs examining two of Houston’s defining landmarks: the Astrodome and Rice Stadium.

“Rory Gardiner’s photographs invite us to see the Astrodome and Rice Stadium as sites through which Houston’s collective memory is continually produced and renegotiated,” said Igor Marjanović, William Ward Watkin Dean of the Rice School of Architecture. “By looking closely at these buildings and the urban spaces that surround them, Gardiner reveals how architecture can hold memories of gathering and civic life even as the city continues to transform.”

Known for his subdued photographs of architecture and the built environment, Gardiner approaches Houston through the material qualities of its buildings and streetscapes, interstitial landscapes, and traces of human activity. His images are often unpopulated. Empty seats, circulation routes, playing fields, parking lots, and idle construction materials instead register the presence of collective life. The Astrodome and Rice Stadium emerge through fragments, oblique views, and shifting atmospheric conditions, situated within a city that is continually rebuilt and transformed. Taken together, these images raise urgent questions about preservation, heritage, adaptation, and the changing identity of Houston.

The exhibition was produced in collaboration with exhibition designers clovisbaronian, a practice led by Assistant Professor Georgina Baronian and Sam Clovis, and graphic designers Experimental Jetset. A full-color exhibition catalog accompanies the show, featuring a foreword by Marjanović and an essay by Maristella Casciato, senior curator and head of architecture special collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

The photographs will also be featured in Sphere, no. 2. Edited by Professor in the Practice and Director of Communications Nathan Friedman, the school’s annual publication features the Houston Archive Project as an ongoing repository of visual imagery documenting the city’s rapid transformation and urbanization. Launched in 2024, the project creates a planetary platform for architectural representation grounded in the specificity of the school’s host city.

Event details
Houston, Untitled / Houston Archive Project: Rory Gardiner / September 25–December 5, 2026 / September 25, 5–7 pm, opening.

Rice Design Chats: The Stadium and the Dome—Preserving Collective Memory
Convened by Igor Marjanović and Rusty Bienvenue (Architecture Center Houston), with David Bucek (Stern and Bucek Architects), Jennifer Kapral (Preservation Houston), and Beth Wiedower Jackson (Astrodome Conservancy) / Co-organized with AIA Houston / September 26, 1pm

Location: Exhibitions at Rice, Cannady Hall, Rice School of Architecture / Admission: Free and open to the public / Gallery hours: Monday–Saturday, 11am–5pm; closed Sundays.

About exhibitions at Rice
As the curatorial program of the Rice School of Architecture, Exhibitions at Rice uses the lens of design research to look at the world differently. Mobilizing a full spectrum of architectural representation—including drawing, imaging, making, and prototyping—this program weaves together scholarly inquiry, visual experimentation, and public engagement. Across all scales, from objects to buildings, cities, and the planet, Exhibitions at Rice engages the discipline of architecture as a cultural practice with a civic mandate, creating new discourses for both local and global audiences.