Chicago Architecture Biennial 2021: A Historic Edition

The Chicago Architecture Biennale opened last weekend and it has already blown our minds. This edition, titled The Available City, introduces us to urban space as a canvas for design and global dialogue. It pretends to be a human and comprehensive approach to the creation of a new urban landscape where community is the real nucleus. It’s an invitation to reflect on the way in which cities are occupied by people and infrastructure, as well as what we can do in order to create better cities for all. 

The event explores the creative potential in collective space, specially in marginalized neighborhoods inhabited by black and brown communities. This Biennial states four key axes: Our Missions are Urbanisms; Futures We Could Have Today; Something Patterned, Wild and Free, and A Power That’s Stronger than Itself. All of these provocations have given birth to works that point to universal critical issues. In times where urban space’s role has evolved, these issues take fascinating turns.

This Biennial is all about community: how are collective spaces shaped by the people who occupy them? How does a city evolve along with its population, its needs and interests? How do we, as a society, take care of these spaces and make them our own? Which role do these spaces play in the upbringing of the youth? This is an invitation to explore those collective spaces that have been shaped and preserved by community organizations, the art and culture that is hosted by these venues, as well as the knowledge that is created here.

The Available City arrives at a complex time for all. As we’re gradually reclaiming the public space, redefining our freedom of movement and dealing with the shared shock that the pandemic has caused globally, reflecting on collective spaces comes as a refreshing and invigorating idea. It is also an invitation to think about architecture in relation to the role it plays within the configuration of a city’s life, not only its infrastructure. YOU MUST READ A Color For These Complex Times

• Chicago Architecture Biennial, https://chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org/