Chicago Architecture Biennial Names 2017 Directors

The announcement was made by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and others at a press conference this morning at the Chicago Cultural Center, when it was also announced that BP and SC Johnson will be returning as lead sponsors.

Johnston Marklee's theme, Making New History, will explore "the axis between history and modernity and the axis between architecture and art," per the Biennial website. Following from the "renewed role that history plays in its making ... the examination of this renewed interest in architectural history, the role of art and architecture, and their impact on cultural continuity is more pressing than ever before."

Chicago, which played a relatively minor role in the inaugural Biennial, directed by Joseph Grima and Sarah Herda, is intended to be the lens for exploring the theme: "With its abundance of wealth in architectural tradition, Chicago becomes the ideal place where questions can be raised and ideas examined toward the making of a new history."

The second Chicago Architecture Biennial will run from 16 September 2017 to 31 December 2017 at the Chicago Cultural Center.

World-Architects met Johnston Marklee at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago during the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015. The architects are renovating the museum that was designed by the late German architect Josef Paul Kleihues and completed in 1996. They picked up on the repeated square geometry of the building for their installation, A Grid Is a Grid Is a Grid, which was installed in the cafe space during the biennial and hinted at the renovation designs that have yet to be unveiled.