Zoë Ryan

Zoë Ryan is the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition to building the museum’s first collection of design, she is editing a book on the important role that exhibitions have played in architecture and design history.

Zoë’s recent exhibitions include: Making Place: The Architecture of David Adjaye (2015), Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects (2012);Fashioning the Object: Bless, Boudicca, and Sandra Backlund (2012); Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention (2011); and Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design (2010). In 2014, she was the curator of the second Istanbul Design Biennial, the Future Is Not What It Used To Be.

Zoë has authored and edited numerous publications, including: Building with Water: Designs, Concepts, Visions (2010). She served as Chair of the Jury for the National Design Awards in 2013, and she sat on the curatorial advisory committee for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012. In 2012, Fast Company magazine named Zoë one of the 50 people shaping the future of design.