fbpx

Chicago Architectural Biennial 2023: This Is a Rehearsal

As Chicago’s architectural landscape continually evolves, the fifth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial offers a fresh, reflective look into the heart of urban transformation. Beginning September 21, 2023, CB5 invites locals and visitors alike to participate in a series of immersive events and discussions. Here’s what you can expect from the 2023 Biennial This Is a Rehearsal.

Diving into this year’s theme, This Is a Rehearsal, serves as an exciting reminder that cities, much like the instants of life, are in endless evolution. Through this lens, CB5 emphasizes the importance of continuous dialogue, trial, and reinvention in urban designs. CB5 explores how countries around the world share political, environmental and economic issues and how each may address them differently through art, architecture and public involvement. It’s not just about the buildings but the stories they tell and the communities they foster.

Floating Museum, a Chicago-based arts collective, is the lead artistic team behind CB5, pushing boundaries and charting new territories in urban discourse. Their integrative approach promises an engaging mix of conversations, challenging conventions, and setting the stage for tomorrow’s architectural landscape. CB5 expands on Floating Museums’ existing beliefs and work, all exploring the relationships between the built environment and ourselves. 

With over 80 contributors from Chicago and the global stage, the Biennial is a testament to diverse, inventive thought. The contributors, ranging from artists and architects to educators and thinkers, breathe life into various corners of the city, from Lakeview’s artful streets to North Lawndale’s historic boulevards. It’s more than just an exhibition; it’s a city-wide celebration of innovation. 

Local contributors include Grow Greater Englewood, Urban Growers Collective, Project Onward, the Poetry Foundation and the Southside Community Art Center. Contributors from around the United States and the globe include Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Buell Center at Columbia University, SpaceShift and Stoss Landscape Urbanism

Marking its commencement on September 21st, the Biennial unfolds various installations across the city. A special opening celebration is slated for November 1st, showcasing extensive exhibitions at renowned locations like the Chicago Cultural Center and the Graham Foundation. The programs invite viewers to engage in conversations around food and material production, water reclamation and discussions around construction and power in relation to land use and rights. Whether you’re a seasoned architect, a design enthusiast, or just a curious mind, there’s something for everyone.

A Guide to the Chicago Architecture Biennial: The Available City

The first of its kind in North America, Chicago’s Architecture Biennial, an international exhibition of architectural ideas, projects and displays, began in 2014 with the support of the city’s Cultural Affairs department. Similar to Optima, Chicago’s Architecture Biennial celebrates the relationship that design and nature have with one another in urban environments.

Former Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanual described the Biennial as “an ode to the city’s past and an echo to our future.” This year’s theme, “The Available City” stands true to that sentiment. The 2021 edition of the Chicago Biennial “is a framework for a collaborative, community-led design approach that presents transformative possibilities for vacant urban spaces that are created with and for local residents.” Artistic Director, David Brown, a designer, educator, and researcher based at the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois focuses his work on non-hierarchical, flexible and variable approaches to urban design and has selected a group of accomplished collaborators to reflect his vision of an “Available City.” 

In order to achieve a collaborative and community-led design approach that transforms vacant urban spaces, the Biennial invites artists, architects and designers from Chicago and around the world to come together and share their creations, lead workshops and conversations, and create communal spaces where Chicagoans can come together and appreciate their city. Workshops will be held in neighborhoods across the city in which vacant spaces will be transformed into collective spaces. Digital programming will be used to activate these spaces. 

This year’s lineup of collaborators include creators from around the globe and creators who call Chicago home. Chicago-based architect, designer, and educator, Ania Jaworksi, will present a solo exhibition at Volume Gallery in which she pays homage to Chicago and urban life through the humor, pragmatism, and seduction that can be found in design. Other local contributors include Borderless Studio, a research-design practice that leads community-based projects addressing issues of social equity, Central Park Theater Restoration Committee, a group aiming to revive Chicago’s abandoned Central Park Theater, Englewood Nature Trail, a two-mile green infrastructure reuse project located in the Englewood neighborhood, in care of Black women, a creative initiative launched in Chicago’s south side focused on re-activating vacant spaces and creating “cartographies of care,” Open Architecture Chicago + Under the Grid led by Haman Cross III, Lawndale’s resident artist which leads and promotes design-efforts and creative projects in the Lawndale community, PORT, a public-realm design practice founded by Christopher Marcinkowski and Andrew Moddrell, and The Bittertang Farm, an architectural duo composed of Antonio Torres and Michael Loverich who explore architecture’s connection to living organisms. 

International contributors, ranging from Boston to South Africa to China, include Ana Miljački of the Critical Broadcasting Lab at MIT, Atelier Bow-Wow from Tokyo, Japan, Studio Ossidiana from Rotterdam, Netherlands and Venice, Italy, Matri-Archi(tecture) from Basel, Switzerland and Cape Town, South Africa, and Hood Design Studio from Oakland, California among numerous other designers and creatives from around the country and world. 

The 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial is open to the public starting September 17.

person name goes here

Maintenance Supervisor

Glencoe, IL





    Acceptable file types: *.pdf | *.txt | *.doc, max-size: 2Mb