The city of Chicago has its remarkable charm that not many can resist. While most will pick New

York City over the windy city of Chicago. Many forget that Chicago is a city that was once described

by Nelson Algren as possessing a “peculiar wilderness” and a land made out of “steel and blood -red

neon” We don’t know about you, but that sounds very interesting compared to being the city “that

never sleeps”

Most people are aware that Chicago already possesses great feats of architecture some examples

being the towering Art Deco skyscrapers and the dozens of Frank Lloyd Wright homes. Chicago

seems to create buildings that are needed rather than desired.

It all started in 1909 with Daniel Burnham’s “Plan of Chicago,” which laid out a bold, progressive

vision for the city in magnificent, large-scale illustrations that you can still find in the basement of the

Art Institute. This same concept and vision were used to come up with Chicago’s first architecture

biennial said to be the largest collection of contemporary international architecture in North America.

This collection will go through until January 3rd.

The architecture biennial was said to be an odd counterpart to the Venice Biennale of Architecture.

However, the Chicago event architecture biennial is viewed as both more aware and observant with

local issues and more socially conscious than Venice. Many of the exhibits are concentrated in the

Beaux Arts rooms of the Chicago Cultural Center, based in an over the top lavish setting which is

draped with gilt, marble, mosaic, and Tiffany glass.

You can even find a very timely exhibition created by Jeanne Gang that focuses on improving “police

and community relations”. The collection perpetuates the idea of police stations doubling as civic

centers and offering things like free Wi-Fi, mental health counseling, daycare, even basketball

courts.

The Architecture Biennial also hosts many lesser-known artists and rather then disappearing

between the heavyweights, they contribute to the exhibits. Some might even say that the new

commers provided with the most refreshing exhibits.

One of which included the concept and purpose of future campgrounds while another created by

Tomás Saraceno, focused its attention on just spinning REAL spider webs into an exciting and even

scary form of architectural expression.

Many critics have commented on the full on, assertive and headstrong nature of the event, but this

Chicago’s architecture biennial organizers feel that creating this feeling was the entire point of the

event.

“We didn’t want to constrain the work with a theme,” cocurator Sarah Herda told The Guardian. “We

went out into the world and asked architects to tell us what they think matters.”