The Museum of Modern Art announces that Pedro Gadanho, a Lisbon-based architect, curator, and writer whose international work has focused on the connections between architecture and contemporary culture, has been appointed Curator in the Department of Architecture and Design. He will join MoMA on January 11, 2012.

In his new role, Mr. Gadanho will be responsible for a broad portfolio that reinforces the Museum's commitment, since 1932, to contemporary architecture. In addition to building the Museum's holdings of contemporary architecture, he will: oversee the annual Young Architects Program (YAP), co-organized with MoMA PS1, and the two-year-old YAP International Program in conjunction with the MAXXI in Rome and Constructo in Santiago, Chile; organize further exhibitions in the Museum's "Issues in Contemporary Architecture" series; and develop larger scale exhibitions of contemporary architecture, including exhibitions that explore relationships between architecture and other contemporary art practices.

"Pedro is a talented and innovative curator and a tireless advocate for contemporary practice," said Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA. "As a key liaison between the Museum and academics, practitioners, and partner organizations, he will solidify our role as an international showcase for the most innovative contemporary architects, and will help us develop positions of relevance in contemporary architecture in exhibitions and programs."

Mr. Gadanho holds masters degrees in Architecture from the University of Porto in Portugal and Art and in Architecture from the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Great Britain, as well as a PhD in Architecture and Mass Media from the University of Porto. He has been a member of the faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto and a guest teacher at numerous European institutions, including BIarch (Barcelona) and ESA (Paris).

Most recently, Mr. Gadanho was co-founder and director of the Centre for Contemporary Urban Culture, which recently organized Once Upon a Place: Haunted Houses and Imaginary Cities, the 1st International Conference on Architecture and Fiction. He was selected as a nominator to both the Curry Stone Design Prize and the latest Mies van der Rohe prize 2011, and took part in the advisory boards to the British Pavilion in the 2010 Venice Biennale, and the DAC/REALDANIA Urban Futures Think Tank in Copenhagen in 2011.

He was the chief curator of the national architecture exhibition Habitar Portugal 06-08 for the Portuguese Architects Guild, and is involved in the organization of an exhibition on one hundred years of Portuguese interiors for the MUDE design museum in Lisbon, and in a public space intervention competition for the European Capital of Culture 2012 on the theme of performance architecture.

Mr. Gadanho is the editor-in-chief of the bookazine BEYOND, Short Stories on the Post-Contemporary, curates the blog ShrapnelContemporary, and contributes regularly to other international publications. He has co-authored two TV series on architecture and design between 2000 and 2003.

Mr. Gadanho was also the curator of Metaflux, the Portuguese representation at the 2004 Architecture Venice Biennale, and of exhibitions such as Post.Rotterdam for Porto 2001, Space Invaders for the British Council London in 2002, and Pancho Guedes for the Swiss Architecture Museum in 2009. His designs include widely published exhibition layouts, galleries, and house renovations.

He is a contributor to publications such as DOMUS, Abitare, ICON and Damn, and to a variety of exhibition catalogues.