{"id":279265,"date":"2025-10-05T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T10:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279265\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T10:12:11","slug":"what-shift-is-the-chicago-architecture-biennial-pushing-us-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/279265\/","title":{"rendered":"What shift is the Chicago Architecture Biennial pushing us to?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s hard to quibble with the initial premise of this year\u2019s Chicago Architecture Biennial<\/a>. It\u2019s titled \u201cSHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change,\u201d and that certainly seems to describe our current situation. Assembled by artistic director Florencia Rodriguez, an Argentine-born architect whose day job until recently has been director of University of Illinois Chicago\u2019s School of Architecture, the event offers a grand buffet of ideas and installations ostensibly about architecture and our challenging times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the sixth edition of the CAB and marks the 10th anniversary of the inaugural event. In some very obvious ways, this biennial is a bit less ambitious than some previous iterations. Its approach to the Chicago Cultural Center has been significantly scaled back from the first few editions, and this is probably a good thing. Filling the entire building was a daunting prospect for curators, and confining them to just a few series of galleries on the first and fourth floors provides more than enough space. But I do miss the substantial interventions that the Randolph Street entrance and Randolph Square space once held. Perhaps this is one area where a bit more would be in order.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The core exhibits make up \u201cSHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change\u201d at the Chicago Cultural Center. Beyond that downtown locale, there are three primary installations: \u201cSHIFT: Fragmented Manifestos\u201d at the Graham Foundation in the Gold Coast; \u201cSHIFT: TRACES\u201d at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Jackson Park; and \u201cSHIFT: Melting Solids\u201d at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Greater Grand Crossing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shown in the first floor Michigan Avenue Galleries on the east side of the Cultural Center is Kwong Von Glinow\u2019s Forget-Me-Not Pavilion. It proposes to reinvigorate a lakefront pavilion near the Museum Campus that was commissioned by the first CAB in 2015. Perforating the cross-laminated timber roof with a series of flower-shaped apertures will provide more natural light into the pavilion\u2019s interior while introducing some welcome whimsy.<\/p>\n

One somewhat unusual, perhaps unintended, theme is inflatables. Most memorable is Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork\u2019s Variations in Mass Nos. 5, 6, 7 that fills one of the Michigan Avenue Galleries. Its three serpentine \u201cbrick\u201d walls inflate and deflate to create varying spaces in the room. Nearby is Objects of Common Interest\/LOT office for architecture\u2019s Surfaces in Flux\u00a0that presents an inverted dome over a platform of inflatable sections that dares visitors to recline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sitting neatly in the fourth floor Exhibit Hall on the east side of the building is Studio Sean Canty\u2019s Regal Reverb, which creates a \u201cSpeaker\u2019s Corner\u201d for the biennial while evoking the long-gone Regal Theater in Bronzeville. The installation\u2019s bold graphics of simplified columns and arches is memorable and useful, if just a bit too postmodern.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The high-ceilinged Sidney R. Yates Gallery on the fourth floor of the Cultural Center has often been the site for CAB\u2019s more ambitious and memorable installations. It\u2019s no different this year with BURR\u2019s \u201cMinor Tectonics\u201d \u2014 a set of three fabric arches that bisect the large space \u2014 and R&R STUDIOS\u2019 Beauty for All \u2014 a billboard-inspired sign that says just that. <\/p>\n

On a smaller scale is Tamara Kostianovsky\u2019s Nature Made Flesh, which renders tree trunks and stumps from colorful fabrics made from the artist\u2019s late father\u2019s clothing. RADDAR\u2019s Our Second Skin, the Skin of the City is a small space semi-enclosed by a curving wall of 2,500 glass shingles that provides a memorable meditation on glass.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Further afield, Balsa Crosetto Piazzi and Giorgis Ortiz\u2019s \u201cSHIFT: TRACES\u201d installation on the front lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry is particularly disappointing. It promises to reveal the outlines of the buildings that stood on the Jackson Park site for the 1893 World\u2019s Columbian Exposition. But the low-lying brick walls are just an abstraction of the reality that once graced this portion of the park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the Graham Foundation, \u201cSHIFT: Fragmented Manifestos\u201d features several provocative installations. Diller + Scofidio\u2019s Bad Press reprises a 1990s project that muses on the shape of dress shirts. Don\u2019t miss the evocative shadows that appear below the light box \u2014 one of the more hauntingly beautiful pieces in the entire biennial. Sergio Prego\u2019s Get out of the way\u00a0<\/b>dominates the Graham Foundation\u2019s two first-floor rooms.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

CAB has been smart to cast a wide net and boost interest in nearly every architectural event that occurs during its biennial cycle. A few of the \u201cother\u201d exhibits are well worth seeing \u2014 and perhaps a little less esoteric than some of the more official parts of the biennial.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCommon Chicago\u201d at Iker Gil\u2019s MAS Context Reading Room in Wicker Park puts the spotlight on projects by some of the best (and newest) Chicago architectural firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Disappointed Tourist at the Chicago Architecture Center depicts more than 300 images of mostly demolished structures from more than 30 countries around the world. Chosen and painted by Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Harvey, the exhibit is a straightforward exercise in memory and nostalgia, sometimes leavened with humor. Not everything depicted is a building. For example, there\u2019s the Titanic \u2014 as well as the iceberg.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jeanne Gang\u2019s Studio Gang has mounted a noteworthy little exhibition on the first floor of its office in Wicker Park that gives a glimpse behind the design of its recent Populus hotel in Denver. The 13-story flatiron building is notable for the eccentric scalloped shaped windows across its facades. A large-scale basswood model conveys the subtle and beguiling nuance of these unusual apertures based on the textures of aspen trees. Another highlight is a bit of the scrim that appears above the hotel\u2019s bar \u2014 using a uniquely expressive \u201cmushroom leather\u201d called reishi. It\u2019s cultivated from fungus and fiber, then finished by traditional leather tanners. Most of the exhibited pieces come from Studio Gang\u2019s archives, but the mockup material is on loan as the material is rather pricey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The CAB has always been looking to expand what architecture is and can be. And expanding architecture\u2019s role should be a good thing, but to what end? By the time you\u2019ve visited this year\u2019s many and varied entries, it\u2019s hardly clear what architecture is offering in this time of radical change. <\/p>\n

\u201cSHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change\u201d starts with a serious premise, but it\u2019s unclear that it delivers a genuine shift at all.<\/p>\n

Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan\u2019s biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.<\/p>\n

Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here<\/a> or email letters@chicagotribune.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to quibble with the initial premise of this year\u2019s Chicago Architecture Biennial. It\u2019s titled \u201cSHIFT: Architecture…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":279266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,8541,11890,21905,5386,1818,1269],"class_list":{"0":"post-279265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-columnists","10":"tag-commentary","11":"tag-edward-keegan","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-opinion"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115321028237466772","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}