The PIN–UP Museum Issue! In this first in a series of guest-edited issues, curators Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen pose two essential questions: is The Museum a space that can nurture and inspire the imagination; or is it a place of ruin where objects go to die? In other words: is it necessary? Or should the museum go away? Find out more on 208 beautifully designed pages, including nine collectible covers featuring Martine Syms, Carrie Mae Weems, Smiljan Radić, Itusko Hasegawa, and more. Museum-worthy.

MARTINE SYMS
The artist on creating alter egos, the limitations of working with museums, and the films that shaped her practice
Interview by Jordan Richman
Portraits by Zoë Ghertner

SMILJAN RADIĆ
The Chilean architect’s radical collection of ephemeral architecture finds a new home, plus his love of inflatables, and why the best museums are free
Interview by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen
Portraits by Paula Zeigler

ITSUKO HASEGAWA
The pioneering Japanese architect’s work connects nature and architecture by filtering tradition through postmodernism
Interview by Niels Olsen and Fredi Fischli
Portraits by Satomi Yamauchi

MAX RICHTER
The classical artist transformed a tractor shed in the Oxfordshire countryside into a sustainable multimedia studio
Interview by India Ennenga
Portraits by Federike Helwig

Also in the issue: The past, present, and future of living museums; The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw’s director Joanna Mytkowska on opening Poland’s first museum since 1938; Adam Pendleton on Carrie Mae Weems’s Museums series; Béatrice Grenier on the relationship between museums and landscape; five questions for critic Kenneth Frampton; an inside look at the queer communities featured in Dream Homes, a PIN–UP film commission for the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s triennial; profiles on artists Arash Nassiri, Andy Medina, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles; a conversation between architects Mariam Issoufou and Adam Caruso on their relationship to building, visiting, and teaching museums; a visual musing on muses by Thyago Sainte; Molteni’s design museum; de Padova’s effortless contemporaneity; Soft Baroque’s reinterpretation of the classic Landi chair; and HOT 37, PIN–UP’s ultimate list of what’s currently sizzling in design.