The Chicago Architecture Biennial Announces Ten Year Anniversary, 2025 Dates, Theme & Artistic Director, Florencia Rodriguez

The Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) is thrilled to celebrate its tenth anniversary, alongside the announcement of CAB 6: Shift: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, the next iteration of the Biennial to be held in 2025, led by Florencia Rodriguez, a writer, editor and Director at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Architecture, who will be the Biennial's first Latina Artistic Director.

In the past decade, CAB has sustained an international forum on architecture and urbanism centered in Chicago and has continued to produce the largest exhibition of contemporary architecture in North America every two years. CAB exhibitions and public programs have engaged over 2.2 million visitors with innovative ideas in design through over 400 original projects created by architects, artists and designers from nearly 50 countries.

As one of the most public and accessible architecture events in the world, CAB has created a powerful platform for ideas and now embarks on a new decade of growth and ambitious programs.

Governor JB Pritzker states: "The Chicago Architecture Biennial is an exposition of ideas focused on the nexus of architecture and the societal issues that affect communities worldwide. Since its inception in 2015, the Biennial has both challenged and entertained local audiences and national and international visitors to our state. I have every expectation that CAB 6 will achieve those same goals and look forward to its opening in September 2025."

The sixth edition of CAB, which is free and open to the public, will open its central exhibition in the Chicago Cultural Center on September 12, 2025 and run through February 28, 2026. The historic Chicago Cultural Center, the headquarters of the City of Chicago Department of Culture and Special Events (DCASE), located in the heart of downtown Chicago within the Millennium Park Campus, serves as the Biennial's hub and the site of the main exhibition. Through partnerships across the City of Chicago and around the world, a network of organizations will create a constellation of projects, expanding the conversation and exploration of ideas around the most salient issues facing the field of architecture today.

"The Chicago Architecture Biennial is a premier platform for global dialogue on architecture and design, while playing a crucial role in Chicago's vibrant cultural landscape. The influence of our city's art is characterized by boldness, innovation and diversity - everything the Biennial embodies. Since its inception, DCASE has partnered with and championed the Biennial and eagerly await its 2025 edition," DCASE Commissioner Clinée Hedspeth added.

CAB 6 will enlist Florencia Rodriguez, Director of and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Architecture (UIC/SoArch), as Artistic Director to lead this pivotal edition of the Biennial. Titled Shift: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, CAB 6 will form an expansive and multi-faceted exploration of the field of architecture and the built environment globally, with a special focus on the cultural forces that impact design, such as the need to rethink collective housing, material culture, ecologies and the impact that migration has on our cities. New and commissioned projects will address the most pressing issues of our time and in doing so chart a new agenda for contemporary design.

"It's a tremendous honor to lead the most important architecture exhibition in the United States," states CAB 6 Artistic Director Florencia Rodriguez. "As a cultural practice, architecture represents how we live and the futures we envision. Shift will be an opportunity to gather global experiences, ideas and projects that create an archive of contemporary architecture to inform decision making, education, debate and collective thinking about the world we design."

Jack Guthman, Chairman of CAB's Board of Directors, shares: "The Biennial will again be a city-wide celebration of architecture and design-a forum for dialogue about the built environment in the American city most renowned for its architectural heritage. CAB approaches that goal in collaboration with the city's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and in partnership with world-renowned and community-based arts and cultural venues across Chicago. We greatly value these alliances and the generous support provided by the city and state and the foundations, corporations and individual donors whose contributions sustain the CAB exhibition and programs."

With exhibitions, installations, events and a robust youth education program throughout Chicago, CAB 6 will also produce an array of virtual initiatives that will open possibilities for participation beyond the city itself. Alongside an international open call for ideas will be a podcast featuring leading voices in design from around the world and a program for international schools of architecture. With more programs still to be announced, the full scope of CAB 6 will be to encapsulate the complexity of the challenges facing the field of architecture today through a network of resources that will remain accessible long after the Biennial closes.

"In the ten short years since its inception, the Chicago Architecture Biennial has continued the legacy of our city as a cultural and architectural powerhouse," said Mayor Brandon Johnson. "As North America's largest architecture and design exhibition, the Biennial provides people of all ages with a unique experience of utilizing our city as a classroom. Whether you want to understand the depth of Chicago's architectural roots or are interested in the innovative future of design across the globe, the Chicago Architecture Biennial is for you! I am proud to join the City of Chicago to support this vital civic initiative."

CAB 6 participants and program partners will be announced in early 2025.

About Florencia Rodriguez
Florencia Rodriguez is Director of and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago's School of Architecture (UIC/SoArch). Having practiced mainly as an editor, writer and educator, she has built a career path driven by a strong entrepreneurial spirit that led her to create and run cultural initiatives related to architecture and design.

In 2010, Rodriguez founded PLOT, a publication she continued to direct until 2017, when she co-founded NESS with Pablo Gerson. From that platform, she's edited books and organized events committed to the dissemination of new narratives, the exploration of alternative forms of design criticism and discussions about the contemporary role of design.

In 2015, she created Monte, an independent space in Buenos Aires, where she created and promoted a very active public program. Before coming to UlC, she was a lecturer in architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was granted the Loeb Fellowship between 2013 and 2014. During that year, she focused her research on new modes of criticism and the architecture of the Americas. Rodriguez has lectured, curated exhibitions, acted as a juror and organized international symposia in different institutions.

As Director of UIC SoArch, Rodriguez has advocated for the inclusion of more diverse cultural perspectives in the form of lectures, symposia and publications. Through public discussions and conferences, she has sought to pull the school into broader conversations occurring in society today and to integrate contemporary criticism to reinforce the importance of collective thinking and its role as a nexus of intellectual and creative engagement. As founder of SoArch's yearly publication Pollen, Rodriguez further capitalizes on the school's public program to open discourse happening within the school to larger audiences.

She's received awards for her editorial work and published several articles in books and specialized media such as Domus, Oris, summa+, Arquine, A+U and Uncube. In 2020, together with Mark Lee, she guest-edited America, the 48th issue of the Harvard Design Magazine. Her more recent book, MCHAP 2 Territory & Expeditions (ITAC, Actar, NESS), was launched in March 2022. She's currently working on two new titles: one on Machado Silvetti / Drawings from 1975-1995 with Harvard Design Press and A Critical / Editorial Manifesto in the Age of Dispersion with Park Books.

About Chicago Architecture Biennial
The Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) is a non-profit organization dedicated to convening the world to explore innovative ideas and bring people together to collectively imagine and shape the future of design. CAB's programs are committed to producing opportunities to explore and address timely global issues through the lens of architecture and design, emphasizing community engagement, sustainability and equity. Free and open to the public, CAB stands as North America's largest international survey of contemporary architecture and design.

The signature program of the Chicago Architecture Biennial takes place every two years at the Chicago Cultural Center and sites across the city. CAB has hosted five editions since 2015: This is a Rehearsal (2023); The Available City (2021); …and other such stories (2019); Make New History (2017); and The State of the Art of Architecture (2015).

CAB programming throughout the year engages global audiences in conversations exploring critical ideas and questions facing the field and beyond. Over the course of its internationally heralded editions, CAB has presented projects created by more than 400 architects, designers and artists from nearly 50 countries.

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