In June 2026, Charlie Koolhaas presented After the Image at XVA Art Hotel & Gallery in Dubai, the culmination of an extended period of research into Gulf modernist architecture supported by the UAE Modern Architectural Heritage Grant, in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, Zayed University and Majra – National CSR Fund.
The exhibition transformed Koolhaas’s photographic archive into a series of spatial and material works: sculptural forms derived from the architecture of Gulf modernist buildings were shown alongside Foto-Couture garments, rugs and other image-based objects, translating architectural details, façades and patterns from photographs into three-dimensional forms and functional surfaces.
A parallel installation occupied a room at XVA Art Hotel, where a single modernist building became the visual language for the entire interior, with its architectural forms and details reworked as patterns across the bedspread, rug, cushions and surrounding space. Together, the works explored how documentary photography can move beyond representation to become architecture, textile, object and environment, creating a living material archive of a significant and rapidly changing architectural movement.
