The V&A this autumn open Zoomorphic, an exhibition which examines the new wave of contemporary architecture inspired by animals. The exhibition will feature more than 40 buildings by international architects. Either structurally, visually or organically, the buildings owe their forms to the animal kingdom creating extraordinary shapes and designs which function in new ways.

Not since the emergence of Art Nouveau a century ago has there been such an eruption of buildings inspired by the natural world. New building materials and computer design software have made possible this generation of buildings... The animal analogues in these architects' work range across the entire animal kingdom. They include houses like starfish and butterflies, museum buildings like armadillos and cocoons, and a range of animalistic buildings that keep alive the tradition of eccentric seaside architecture. Zoomorphic will display examples of such buildings from around the world, none more than 15 years old and many still under construction.

The curator of Zoomorphic, Hugh Aldersey-Williams, said: "Some of the most arresting and interesting architecture being designed today by the world's greatest architects is inspired by animal forms, either in a very direct way or when architects borrow more subtly from the biological world. Some of the architecture is whimsical and fantastic, but there is also a serious scientific impulse. As architects learn more from the world of biology, they will be able to create buildings more in harmony with both the natural and built environment." >from *ZOOMORPHIC. A V&A exhibition on contemporary architecture inspired by animals*. September 18, 2003 - January 4, 2004.

related context
> zoomorphic exhibition website.
> project zoomorphic by hugh aldersey-williams. "For me, this exhibition shows the growing importance of the cross-currents between the arts and the sciences. Most of my other projects have been biased towards one or the other; here, they come together."

imago
> inhabiting a zoomorphic structure building
based on aardvark forelimbs [oryteropus]