Chicago Architecture Biennial | |
---|---|
Status | Active |
Genre | Architecture exhibition |
Dates | September–January |
Frequency | Biennially |
Venue | Chicago Cultural Center |
Location(s) | Chicago |
Years active | 10 |
Founded | 2014 |
Next event | 2025 |
Participants | International, invited architects |
Attendance | 500,000 – 550,000 |
Patron(s) | American Institute of Architects; Chicago Architecture Foundation; various public and private corporations and foundations |
Organised by | Chicago Architecture Biennial, Inc. |
Sponsor | City of Chicago; The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts |
Website | chicagoarchitecturebiennial |
The Chicago Architecture Biennial is an international exhibition of architectural ideas, projects and displays. It seeks "to provide a platform for groundbreaking architectural projects and spatial experiments that demonstrate how creativity and innovation can radically transform our lived experience." [1] [2] Founded in 2014, the biennial is managed by a charitable corporation under the auspices of the city's Cultural Affairs department, and sponsored by public and private organizations and individuals.
The first of its kind in North America, the inaugural iteration of the biennale took place in Chicago between October, 2015 and January, 2016, and was headquartered at the Chicago Cultural Center. [3] Its first directors were Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima. [4]
The event was championed by then-mayor Rahm Emanuel who told the Financial Times: "This biennial is an ode to the city's past and an echo to our future." [5] The 2015-16 biennial had entries from 104 architects or practices. The exhibitors were invitees, many from North America and Europe, but also from Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Israel, Japan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Territories, South Africa, and South Korea. The theme of this biennial was The State of the Art of Architecture. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] The title of the first biennial originates from a 1977 conference organized by Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, which invited leading American designers to Chicago to discuss the current state of the field. [17] The first biennial announced it had more than 500,000 visitors, and plans for its return in 2017. [18] [19]
The second iteration was in 2017 with the theme Make New History, and ran from September 16, 2017, through January 7, 2018. [20] [21] The lead curators were Mark Lee and Sharon Johnson of Johnson Marklee. Associate curators include Sarah Hearne and Letizia Garzoli. The opening coincided with EXPO Chicago, the international contemporary art fair. [22] [23] More than 100 architectural practices from the Americas, Asia and Europe were selected to participate. [24] In addition to the main site at the Cultural Center, the biennial partnered with the Chicago Community Trust to hold 2017 events at six satellite locations in other parts of Chicago: The Beverly Arts Center, DePaul Art Museum, DuSable Museum of African American History, Hyde Park Art Center, the National Museum of Mexican Art, and the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture. [25] The second biennial drew a crowd of 550,000 and dates for a third biennial beginning in September 2019 were announced. [26]
The third biennial, under the title . . . And Other Such Stories, explores the circumstances that make the urban architectural environment. Its lead curator was Yesomi Umolu, and it was co-curated by Sepake Angiama and Paulo Tavares. [27] It was open to the public from September 19, 2019, to January 5, 2020. [28] The exposition features over 80 contributors from more than 20 countries. [29] The third iteration of the biennial focused on four main themes: land and belonging, architecture and memory, rights and advocacy, and collaboration and discussion. [30] The Los Angeles Times found the 2019 biennial "eerily prescient" in its examination of contested urban land use issues at a time of international protest. [31]
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.” Founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation. It is considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes, and is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum, America's first devoted exclusively to modern art, was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site.
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues. The museum's collection is composed of thousands of objects of Post-World War II visual art. The museum is run gallery-style, with individually curated exhibitions throughout the year. Each exhibition may be composed of temporary loans, pieces from their permanent collection, or a combination of the two.
Álvaro Joaquim de Melo Siza Vieira is a Portuguese architect, and architectural educator. He is internationally known as Álvaro Siza and in Portugal as Siza Vieira.
The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entrepreneur-industrialist Armand Hammer to house his personal art collection, the museum has since expanded its scope to become "the hippest and most culturally relevant institution in town." Particularly important among the museum's critically acclaimed exhibitions are presentations of both historically overlooked and emerging contemporary artists. The Hammer Museum also hosts over 300 programs throughout the year, from lectures, symposia, and readings to concerts and film screenings. As of February 2014, the museum's collections, exhibitions, and programs are completely free to all visitors.
MoMA PS1 is a contemporary art institution at 22-01 Jackson Avenue in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in New York City, United States. In addition to its exhibitions, the institution organizes the Sunday Sessions performance series, the Warm Up summer music series, and the Young Architects Program with the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA PS1 has been affiliated with the Museum of Modern Art since January 2000 and, as of 2013, attracts about 200,000 visitors a year.
Sir David Frank Adjaye is a Ghanaian-British architect who has designed many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.. Adjaye was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He received the 2021 Royal Gold Medal, making him the first African recipient and one of the youngest recipients. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2022.
Jeanne Gang is an American architect and the founder and leader of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris. Gang was first widely recognized for the Aqua Tower, the tallest woman-designed building in the world at the time of its completion. Aqua has since been surpassed by the nearby St. Regis Chicago, also of her design. Surface has called Gang one of Chicago's most prominent architects of her generation, and her projects have been widely awarded.
Beatriz Colomina is an architecture historian, theorist and curator. She is the founding director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University, the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and director of graduate studies in the School of Architecture.
The BP Pedestrian Bridge, or simply BP Bridge, is a girder footbridge in the Loop community area of Chicago, United States. It spans Columbus Drive to connect Maggie Daley Park with Millennium Park, both parts of the larger Grant Park. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry and structurally engineered by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, it opened along with the rest of Millennium Park on July 16, 2004. Gehry had been courted by the city to design the bridge and the neighboring Jay Pritzker Pavilion, and eventually agreed to do so after the Pritzker family funded the Pavilion.
Martin Felsen is an American architect and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA). He directs UrbanLab, a Chicago-based architecture and urban design firm. Felsen's projects range in scale from houses such as the Hennepin, Illinois Residence, mixed-use residential and commercial buildings such as Upton's Naturals Headquarters, public open spaces such as the Smart Museum of Art Courtyard at the University of Chicago, and large scale, urban design projects such as Growing Water in Chicago and a masterplan for the Yangming Lake region of Changde, China. Felsen was awarded the 2009 Latrobe Prize by the American Institute of Architects, College of Fellows.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is a museum founded by filmmaker George Lucas and his wife, businesswoman Mellody Hobson. Once completed, the museum will hold all forms of visual storytelling, including painting, photography, sculpture, illustration, comic art, performance, and video. It is under construction in Exposition Park in Los Angeles, California. The museum is expected to open in 2025.
NEMA (Chicago) (also 1210 South Indiana and formerly 113 East Roosevelt or One Grant Park) is a 76-story residential skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois in the Central Station neighborhood, of the Near South Side. The tower, built by developer Crescent Heights, has 800 apartments and rises 896 feet (273.1 m) making it the city's tallest rental apartment building. NEMA is the tenth-tallest building in Chicago as of 2024 and the forty first-tallest building in the United States. It is the tallest all-rental residential building in the city.
Amanda Williams is a visual artist based in Bridgeport, Chicago. Williams grew up in Chicago's South Side and trained as an architect. Her work investigates color, race, and space while blurring the conventional line between art and architecture. She has taught at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Illinois Institute of Technology, and her alma mater Cornell University. Williams has lectured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Museum, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and at a TED conference.
Joseph Grima is a British architect, critic, curator and editor. He is the creative director of Design Academy Eindhoven and co-founder of the design research studio, Space Caviar.
SOILED is an architecture magazine released periodically that centers on architecture, design, and the interactions between humans and space. It incorporates the visual elements of design magazines and publishes original writing in the style of a literary magazine. It aims to break down boundaries between architects and non-architects through this combination. Its open submission format allows the publication "to extend the architectural dialogue beyond the community of the discipline to engage the larger public."
Eva Franch i Gilabert is a Catalan architect, curator, critic and educator based in New York City who works in the fields of contemporary art, architecture, and public space. She was executive director and chief curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York from 2010 to 2018.
Yesomi Umolu is a British curator of contemporary art and writer who has been director of curatorial affairs and public practice for the Serpentine Galleries since 2020.
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Li Hu is a Chinese architect and professor. He is the founding partner of OPEN Architecture, Kenzo Tange Design Critic in Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design, visiting professor at the Tsinghua University in Beijing and China Central Academy of Fine Arts, former partner of Steven Holl Architects, and director of Columbia University GSAPP's Studio-X Beijing.