Biennial looks inward: The Chicago exhibition's shift to the past feels like unfortunate timing
CHICAGO - Architecture has taken an extrospective turn in recent years, looking outside itself for new ideas and to measure its progress. Or maybe just to feel more useful in a world flooding, burning and otherwise coming apart at the seams. Among its most visible and lauded figures have been dedicated populists like Chile's Alejandro Aravena. It has made engagement - political, humanitarian and environmental - a key priority.
"Make New History," the second edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, shifts the focus back inward. This elegant and densely layered exhibition, organized by the Los Angeles architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, argues that architecture can (and should) find the motivation for new work within the discipline itself, within its own stores of self-knowledge and tradition.
As the title suggests, "Make New History" takes as its explicit theme the return to the past, to architectural precedent, that's increasingly a touchstone for younger architects. It's true that emerging and midcareer firms are these days producing work that's grounded in history - and even prehistory, with buildings that look less neoclassical than primitive or primordial - to a
