The Head, The Heart & The House: Migration and Modernism in King-lui Wu’s Domestic Architecture foregrounds the life and work of Chinese-born architect King-lui Wu (1918-2002), an active and influential member of the Modernist movement in the United States. Educated under Walter Gropius at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Wu’s vision for a post-war society merged the intellectual rigor of architecture (the head) with the emotional resonance of space (the heart). The exhibition showcases three residential projects in Connecticut—the Rouse, Dupont, and Manuscript houses—as prime examples that demonstrate Wu’s adaptation of Modernist aesthetics. They also highlight his attention to light, integration of the site’s natural surroundings, and use of simple materials. In each of the featured projects, Wu experimented with designing for domesticity. The exterior simplicity of Wu’s houses contrasts with their interior vibrancy, suggesting that a domestic life unfolds from the center outwards. Through the strategic use of wooden panels, sliding doors, and clerestories, his homes mediate the tension between inside and outside: privacy and public life.

Wu envisioned American Modernism as a movement defined by “tolerance, sincerity, and moral courage,” principles that he believed could facilitate harmonious living environments. He sought to incorporate a “sense of adventure” within his projects that he thought were intrinsic to traditional Chinese literature, philosophy, and his family garden, the Panyu Yuyin Mountain House, which produced layered aesthetic qualities of irregularity, concealment, and surprise. Throughout his forty-three year tenure as a professor at the Yale School of Architecture, Wu’s course syllabi often echoed his affinity for Chinese gardens.

Wu’s narrative is a critical lens through which Asian immigration to the US can be examined, particularly during a time of heightened anti-Asian sentiment throughout the 20th century. It also intersects with a significant movement of European intellectual elites migrating to the US during and after WWII. The three houses feature collaborations with German-born artist Josef Albers. Yet, the contributions and careers of these architects and artists who fled Europe are often told in a markedly different manner than those of Chinese-born Wu. This exhibition aims to shift that narrative and spotlight Asian immigrants to the US who shaped the Modernist movement, like King-lui Wu. The lessons from Wu’s story are relevant today as the US finds itself in a parallel moment of heightened political tension, engages in similar exclusionary immigration policies, and stokes episodes of anti-Asian sentiment.