The Vertical City
Wandering around this vertical city of 16ft high models will leave you entertained for hours. The curators commissioned contemporary architects – including Barbas Lopes, Go Hasegawa, Kere Architecture, Sam Jacob Studio, MOS and Tatiana Bilbao Estudio amongst others – to respond to a historic brief first proposed in 1922 for the design of the Chicago Tribune Tower. The architectural competition was revisited in 1980, when architect Stanley Tigerman of the Chicago Seven curated an exhibition of new proposals designed to address 21st century issues. Now, here in 2017, architects have gathered in Chicago once again to interrogate the high rise critically and conceptually.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Photography: Steve Hall
The Vertical City
Wandering around this vertical city of 16ft high models will leave you entertained for hours. The curators commissioned contemporary architects – including Barbas Lopes, Go Hasegawa, Kere Architecture, Sam Jacob Studio, MOS and Tatiana Bilbao Estudio amongst others – to respond to a historic brief first proposed in 1922 for the design of the Chicago Tribune Tower. The architectural competition was revisited in 1980, when architect Stanley Tigerman of the Chicago Seven curated an exhibition of new proposals designed to address 21st century issues. Now, here in 2017, architects have gathered in Chicago once again to interrogate the high rise critically and conceptually.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Photography: Steve Hall
Rooms for Books, MG&Co
Celebrating the material presence of the book and its importance to the field and study of architecture, Houston-based MG&Co has created a ‘platform’ for books based on a cross-shaped plan which opens up space at each corner for discussion, display and exhibition. A curated wall of printed archive material from Stanley and Margaret Tigerman’s library is a highlight, as well as a programme of talks and book-signings rolling out in the space during the Biennial.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Photography: Kendall Mccaugherty
Rooms for Books, MG&Co
Celebrating the material presence of the book and its importance to the field and study of architecture, Houston-based MG&Co has created a ‘platform’ for books based on a cross-shaped plan which opens up space at each corner for discussion, display and exhibition. A curated wall of printed archive material from Stanley and Margaret Tigerman’s library is a highlight, as well as a programme of talks and book-signings rolling out in the space during the Biennial.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Photography: Kendall Mccaugherty
Modern Living, Gerard and Kelly at Farnsworth House
At the Mies van der Rohe-designed Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, choreographers Gerard and Kelly unfolded a narrative of conversation through dance, exploring gender roles in the home. Conceived in a series of chapters, two compelling characters navigate the rigid grid of the house, struggling with communication and intimacy inside the modernist creation that was commissioned for Edith Farnsworth in 1945. While live performances were limited to the opening weekend, the first two instalments of Gerard and Kelly’s drama, choreographed for Schindler House in West Hollywood, California, and Phillip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut can be watched at the City Gallery in the Historic Water Tower, located in Downtown Chicago for the duration of the Biennial.
City Gallery in the Historic Water Tower, 806 Michigan Avenue
Modern Living, Gerard and Kelly at Farnsworth House
At the Mies van der Rohe-designed Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois, choreographers Gerard and Kelly unfolded a narrative of conversation through dance, exploring gender roles in the home. Conceived in a series of chapters, two compelling characters navigate the rigid grid of the house, struggling with communication and intimacy inside the modernist creation that was commissioned for Edith Farnsworth in 1945. While live performances were limited to the opening weekend, the first two instalments of Gerard and Kelly’s drama, choreographed for Schindler House in West Hollywood, California, and Phillip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut can be watched at the City Gallery in the Historic Water Tower, located in Downtown Chicago for the duration of the Biennial.
City Gallery in the Historic Water Tower, 806 Michigan Avenue
Entrance Installation, Ania Jaworska
Welcoming visitors into the main venue of the Biennial, this bright, brash yellow installation has consumed a smaller, much less interesting Chicago Cultural Centre reception desk. Architect Ania Jaworska interrogates traditional architectural classification by subverting the physical and historic forms of the arch and the column until they are almost unrecognisable – her column provides no support and her arch creates a physical boundary instead of an entranceway. The abstract, yet functional work is a structural hybrid that challenges and almost overrides its environment in the impressively ornate Chicago Cultural Centre entranceway.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Photography: Tom Harris
Entrance Installation, Ania Jaworska
Welcoming visitors into the main venue of the Biennial, this bright, brash yellow installation has consumed a smaller, much less interesting Chicago Cultural Centre reception desk. Architect Ania Jaworska interrogates traditional architectural classification by subverting the physical and historic forms of the arch and the column until they are almost unrecognisable – her column provides no support and her arch creates a physical boundary instead of an entranceway. The abstract, yet functional work is a structural hybrid that challenges and almost overrides its environment in the impressively ornate Chicago Cultural Centre entranceway.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Photography: Tom Harris
Metropolitana, Piovene Fabi and Giovanna Silva
Italian practice Piovene Fabi has designed a suite of furniture that samples surfaces, colours and shapes from the first Milan subway line that opened in 1964 – when everything seemed possible. It was a time when transport was the carrier of modernity, and the customised tiles, fabrics and typography symbolised technological progression, as well as defining a new method to move across the city. Influenced by the designs of architects Franco Albini and Franca Helg, and graphic designer Bob Noorda who were involved in the first subway project, Piovene Fabi revisited materials such as Silipol, a colourfully stained concrete, and Pirelli black rubber flooring.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Metropolitana, Piovene Fabi and Giovanna Silva
Italian practice Piovene Fabi has designed a suite of furniture that samples surfaces, colours and shapes from the first Milan subway line that opened in 1964 – when everything seemed possible. It was a time when transport was the carrier of modernity, and the customised tiles, fabrics and typography symbolised technological progression, as well as defining a new method to move across the city. Influenced by the designs of architects Franco Albini and Franca Helg, and graphic designer Bob Noorda who were involved in the first subway project, Piovene Fabi revisited materials such as Silipol, a colourfully stained concrete, and Pirelli black rubber flooring.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Constructions and References, Caruso St John with Thomas Demand and Hélène Binet
A stately tabletop city of five Caruso St John building models is surrounded by a curtain that is in fact a Thomas Demand-designed wallpaper. The geometric and voluminous models, that might remind you of three-dimensional computer renders, communicate a simplicity of form, similar to how buildings can be flattened by a photograph, freed of extra context by a frame. Works by architectural photographer Hélène Binet hang on the wallpaper, capturing recently completed Caruso St John buildings in London, Zurich, St Gallen, Bremen and Lille.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
Constructions and References, Caruso St John with Thomas Demand and Hélène Binet
A stately tabletop city of five Caruso St John building models is surrounded by a curtain that is in fact a Thomas Demand-designed wallpaper. The geometric and voluminous models, that might remind you of three-dimensional computer renders, communicate a simplicity of form, similar to how buildings can be flattened by a photograph, freed of extra context by a frame. Works by architectural photographer Hélène Binet hang on the wallpaper, capturing recently completed Caruso St John buildings in London, Zurich, St Gallen, Bremen and Lille.
Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E Washington Street
