Compelling architecture honors the humble

Architecture is rediscovering its social conscience. That-s the message behind ??��Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement," at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The show, which looks at 11 projects around the world that have had major social impacts despite modest budgets and sizes, is a rebuttal to the familiar complaint that the profession is too focused on aesthetic experimentation and not enough on ordinary people.

Many of the projects are, surprisingly, actually good. The exhibition makes a powerful case that it is possible to create work that is both socially uplifting and architecturally compelling. It-s a notion that dominated architectural thought for much of the first half of the 20th century but that now seems almost jarring.