Beyond the Dazzle: Inspiration, Admiration and Lessons in Chicago’s Architecture This Fall

By GINNY VAN ALYEA

Chicago’s architectural influence and legacy is known around the world, its lakeside site and modern skyline fascinating admirers of architecture and design throughout the decades and dazzling tourists every day. The city’s skyscrapers are progressive ideas and daring made real, defining the modern city and climbing to heights that continuously defy what we think could be the limits of engineering, design and physics. Two major city-wide events take place this fall: The 5th edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial opens in September and the return of Open House Chicago, put on by the Chicago Architecture Center in October. 

Chicago Architectural Biennial

This fall the city will be the nexus of ideas about how architecture can do far more than skim the atmosphere and sell boat tour tickets when the fifth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial opens September 21. Co-led by Jeremiah Hulsebos-Spofford, Faheem Majeed, Andrew Schachman and avery r. young–the team behind the art collective Floating Museum–CAB5: This is a Rehearsal takes an expansive view of design as an iterative rehearsal process to explore architecture, cities, and the different social, ecological, economic and political forces that shape them. 

The Biennial has examined the roles of architecture and public space since its founding, and this edition will be no different, except that the global city of 2023 is quite altered from the city of 2021, and certainly 2019. This year CAB5 is a large-scale, multilayered art exhibition that invites the public to participate in a meeting of the minds in order to consider just what is possible today that builds upon what was created in the past. 

The Chicago Architecture Biennial runs Sept 21–Jan 2, 2024

chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org

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