Design Futures: A Conversation with SFMOMA Curator Joseph Becker

Join us for an inspiring evening with Joseph Becker, curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), as he shares insights into the evolving landscape of design through the lens of curatorial practice. 

This intimate conversation will explore how design is documented, exhibited, and interpreted within the museum context—from emerging technologies and sustainable materials to the cultural shifts influencing form and function. Joseph will reflect on recent exhibitions, acquisitions, and their vision for the future of design at SFMOMA.

Whether you’re a practicing designer, student, or simply design-curious, this event offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from leading voices shaping the public dialogue around architecture and design in the Bay Area and globally.

Moderated by San Francisco Design Week and Design Bay Area CEO, Dawn Zidonis.

JOSEPH BECKER

Curator of Architecture and Design, SFMOMA

Joseph Becker is a curator, writer, and educator in San Francisco. He is the Curator of
Architecture and Design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where since 2007
he has contributed to dozens of exhibitions, including curating Art of Noise (2024),
Marshall Brown Projects: Dequindre Civic Academy (2023), Insist, Resist, Persist:
Women’s Liberation Posters (2020), Stephen ESPO Powers: Daymaker (2019), Donald
Judd: Specific Furniture (2018), Get with the Action: Political Posters from the 1960s to
Now (2017-18), Tomás Saraceno: Stillness in Motion – Cloud Cities (2017), Field
Conditions (2012) and Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams (2011), as well
as co-curating Barbara Stauffacher Solomon: Strips of Stripes (2023), Tauba Auerbach:
S v Z (2022), Far Out: Suits, Habs, and Labs for Outer Space (2019-20), The Sea
Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism (2018-9), Nothing Stable Under
Heaven (2018), Typeface to Interface: Graphic Design from the Collection (2016), and
Lebbeus Woods, Architect (2013-14). Joseph has also been responsible for hundreds of
major acquisitions and donations to SFMOMA’s collection, as well as the exhibition
design and visual direction of many of SFMOMA’s Architecture and Design exhibitions.
He has moderated and served on numerous art and design panels, been an invited
juror at many national architecture programs, led workshops on exhibition and
experiential design, lectured internationally, and consulted on public art and design
projects. His recent publications on art, architecture, and design include Tauba
Auerbach: S v Z (SFMOMA/D.A.P., 2020), and The Sea Ranch: Architecture,
Environment, and Idealism (Prestel/DelMonico, 2018), and contributions to Lebbeus
Woods: Exquisite Experiments, Early Years (Wiley, 2024), Strips of Stripes: Barbara
Stauffacher Solomon (Colpa Press, 2023), Recurrent Visions: The Architecture of
Marshall Brown Projects (Princeton Architectural Press, 2022), Allied Works
Architecture: Dwelling (Rizzoli, 2017), and Lebbeus Woods: Architect (The Drawing
Center, 2014). He received both his Bachelor of Architecture and his Master of
Advanced Architectural Design in Design Theory and Critical Practice from the
California College of the Arts, where he has been a Visiting Professor teaching
interdisciplinary seminars on art and architecture.

Dawn Zidonis

CEO, San Francisco Design Week/Design Bay Area

Co-founder and CEO of Design Bay Area and San Francisco Design Week. Design Bay Area is the leading multi-disciplinary design, arts and culture platform showcasing the innovation, influence and reach of the products and brands in our region.

Dawn is also the co-founder of World Design Weeks, a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting international design weeks, sharing resources and content while fostering conversations and relationships between design cities.

She has served on the board of directors at The Center for Architecture and Design in San Francisco which produces Architecture and the City, a month long celebration of Architecture and Design. Dawn calls herself “a total introvert” but no one who actually knows her believes it.