Photograph courtesy of the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Before there was Mies, there was Mecca. Built originally as a hotel for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Mecca Apartments, which once occupied the site of the now-heralded IIT campus in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, served as a cultural epicenter for the city’s Black community. This was a community formed primarily by participants of what is called “the Great Migration,” one of the largest mass internal migrations in history. Between 1916 and 1970, 1.6 million people fled the American South, where they faced Jim Crow laws, racist ideology, and widespread, institutionalized murder (nearly 3,500 Black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968). But when they arrived in Chicago and other Northern cities, they were met with similar instances of racism, segregation, and violence. Places like the Mecca Apartments served as rare shelter. So when, under the guise of so-called “urban renewal,” the Mecca Apartments were slated for demolition to make room for the IIT campus, the community fought back—and, ultimately, lost.

This story is hardly anomalous, particularly in cities like Chicago. Here and elsewhere, celebrated works of architecture were built through displacement. If these histories are forgotten or obscured, it is in part due to the willful production of certain narratives over others. History is as much about forgetting as it is about remembering, and we—that is to say, the architectural community—tend to recall stories of design heroism over horror. In the process, at least implicitly, Miesian details are determined more valuable, for society or for ourselves, than the lives of certain communities and their own artistic output. While directly material violence may be more evident in eviction notices and on the demolition site, this process of valuation happens within the spaces of discourse production, from books to biennials. Our discourses are never neutral, but rather serve as filtering devices, as frames, by which certain spatial transformations are rendered visible while others are obscured.

History is as much about forgetting as it is about remembering, and we—that is to say, the architectural community—tend to recall stories of design heroism over horror.

Last week, the second Chicago Architecture Biennial, curated by Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of the Los Angeles-based practice Johnston Marklee, launched with the theme “Make New History.” According to the curatorial statement, the Biennial is meant to “focus on the efforts—across registers of building and discursive production—of contemporary architects to align their work with versions of history.” In their view, architecture is in the grips of a revival of historicism, in which the styles and strategies of the past have become a new source of inspiration for architects. Alongside this, the curators claim an intention to underscore how “considerations for architecture in the context of history include the regulation and management of power and identity; what prevails and what does not; and how to recognize the significance of untold narratives.”

But, in reality, there are few “untold” narratives in this Biennial. The already-dominant dominates. When, for example, the IIT Campus makes its perhaps inevitable appearance (and, it should be said that, despite the railings against modernism that serve as the foundation of the curatorial statement, Mies’ specter haunts a disproportionately large portion of the exhibition), there is no mention of the Mecca Apartments. Instead, the campus footprint provides the dimensions for a series of low pedestals, each of which correspond to one of the school’s buildings. What do the Real Foundation, Andrew Kovacs, and MAIO have in common? Without elaboration, these very distinct practices and several others were bundled together in a room, given one of these pedestals, and told to make a model that somehow riffs on a historical photograph of their choice depicting a famous architectural interior. 

in reality, there are few “untold” narratives in this Biennial

Why? Because “there are many contemporary photographic projects in this year’s biennial,” in which architecture is primarily viewed as “subject, backdrop, or framing device,” and the curators decided they should reverse this. Why? “The photographed interior, circulated through a variety of media platforms, has produced highly specific constructions of lifestyles that involve the removal of certain bits of information and the fabrication of others.” What’s with the seemingly arbitrary deployment of the IIT campus as a delimiting structure? Because it’s a “very familiar figure and ground that operates like a collective afterimage.”

This is, in my opinion, a heavy-handed imposition of arbitrary constraints with no real value, defended by an obscurantist discourse that shuts out the ostensible audience of the Biennial, which is to say the Chicago public. Not only does it add zero context and no meaning, it forces practices that employ diverse strategies—many of which are not strictly formal—towards bland tactics of representation meant to, assumedly, encapsulate their thinking. In short, the curation makes it very difficult to actually examine the work. This fails a basic imperative of an international architecture biennial, which is to provide the ground to meaningfully showcase a practice and their work. To make matters worse, the plinths are so low that you have to nearly sit on the floor in order to view the interiors of the models, which are the foci of the assignment. Some are squashed together, so you can’t even see the model in the round.

Hierarchization may be inevitable in a biennial, but here it is offensively evident.

Rather than an exception, this room exemplifies the broader curatorial failures of “Make New History.” Here, overwrought strategies are frequently deployed—perhaps in response to criticism of the last Biennial’s lack of clear focus. In one room, a series of large towers plays off the Chicago Tribune Tower competition. While the scale is visually-arresting and the projects Instagrammable, the reasons behind revisiting this over-visited anecdote of Chicago architectural history are not convincingly argued. And, once again, this is a primarily formal exercise, done at the expense of showcasing other aspects of a practice, such as Tatiana Bilbao’s impressive work with social housing. While certain practices seem to have been given free-range to display recent work, others are confined in these peculiar assignments. Hierarchization may be inevitable in a biennial, but here it is offensively evident.

Beyond being overbearing, the curatorial strategy is conceptually-deficient. History is rendered a static object, a standing reserve of source material, rather than a process of inscription that is inherently contested. The primary aim of the exhibition appears to be to highlight those practices currently invested in a sort of neohistoricism that privileges form and affect over broader inquiry into the social and political forces that originally generated them (despite the claims of the curatorial statement and wall texts). Neo-pomo is everywhere, severed from the radical context in which its precedent originally emerged. I should state clearly that there are exceptions to this—and certainly robust works within the exhibition, for example by T+E+A+M and DOGMA, to name just two—but their visibility appears, to me, to be sublimated towards a larger image of contemporary architecture divested of politics. As such, when the expressly political does emerge, it feels relegated to the tangential—a sort of virtue signaling done in deference to the mandates of the current political climate—rather than acknowledged as the apriority of any spatial manipulation. In short, the exhibition, as a whole, suggests that we can dip into history and emerge unmarked. But the past is as sticky as oil—what is left unsaid screams for attention.

the past is as sticky as oil—what is left unsaid screams for attention

For example, the curators declare that the exhibition is intended to redress “a general collective amnesia” that marks the contemporary moment. In this, they egregiously insult the primary political struggles in America today. How could one accuse Black Lives Matter activists of forgetting the institutionalized racism and violence that precedes and determines their oppression today? What of the recent events in Charlottesville, where a neo-Nazi murdered a protester attempting to address the valorization of slavery in the form of monuments to the armies who fought for it? These are struggles, in part, over how history is made manifest in the built environment. By definition, architects are implicated in whichever version of history ultimately appears and how. The exclusion of such urgent political questions from consideration in a biennial focused on history is not mere oversight—it is the maintenance of a way of writing the history of architecture severed from context. The curators are the amnesiacs, not us.

Actually, “Make New History,” a tagline lifted from an Ed Ruscha book, elegantly captures the mutability of this thing we call history. Rather than an objective timeline, it is always already in the process of being written. And, as we say, history is written by the victors—in other words, those who wield power, in this case, Johnston Marklee. In turn, history operates. It acts. It is both created by architects and creates architects. What, then, does this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial do? The obfuscated writing of its wall texts, as well as hermetic focus on intra-disciplinary concerns like formalism, makes it seem rather unlikely that the organizers took seriously their mandate to make contemporary architecture legible to the broader Chicago public. And, despite its claim to make “new history,” the predictable focus on cliché case studies in modernism and postmodernism only reify existing historical narratives of architecture. So is the Chicago Architecture Biennial only an exercise in self-flattery? An excuse to celebrate ourselves over champagne toasts? Unfortunately, no—it’s much worse.

History operates. It acts. It is both created by architects and creates architects.

For the second time in a row, the primary sponsor of the Chicago Architecture Biennial is the multinational oil and gas mega-conglomerate BP, formerly known as British Petroleum. Less than a decade ago, the company was responsible for spilling 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico—the worst oil spill in the history of oil spills—after its drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded, claiming the lives of eleven people. The spill indelibly damaged the ecosystems of the Gulf and its coasts. Dolphins died at six times the normal rate and washed ashore ten times as often as before. Fish developed fatal organ deformities. Entire coral reefs died off. The wetlands of the region, which serve as a pivotal buffer against climate change-induced sea level rise, were ravaged. In turn, the massive fishing and tourism industries that supported the human populations of the area were devastated. The former lost $2.5 billion within just a few months. This may not look like architecture, but it more substantially redesigned the morphology of the region, and its ways of life, than any building or master plan.

But BP has redesigned more than just the Gulf of Mexico. Founded as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in the early twentieth century, the company essentially pillaged the oil reserves of Iran in exchange for just 16% of profits (and Iranians were not allowed access to the accounting). During the First World War, the British government bought a majority share in the concession in part to fuel its armies. A major entity of British colonialism, the company was known for its exploitative and cruel treatment of workers. So, when Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically-elected in 1951, he attempted to nationalize the company. In response, the British government teamed up with the CIA to stage a coup (the first of many for the CIA), overthrowing Mossadegh and replacing him with the autocratic Shah. The rest is relatively well-known history: less than twenty years later, riding a wave of anti-imperialist sentiment, Ayatollah Khomeini assumed power. Once again, this may not look like architecture, but it is, essentially, a redesign of geopolitics. In turn, whether due to the effects of the oil industry on a national building economy, or by limiting access to global architectural discourse for a nation, the actions of BP and the fossil fuel industry at large have had undeniable, rippling effects on the architecture of the twentieth century. The morphology of many contemporary cities—car-centric and sprawling—expresses in physical form their dominating influence. And now, we are faced with a pressing need to adapt our cities due to climate change-induced sea level rise and other environmental disasters. There would probably be no “sustainable” architecture if not for companies like BP—no tree-covered edifices or grass-topped roofs. This history doesn’t make its way into “Make New History.”

There would probably be no “sustainable” architecture if not for companies like BP—no tree-covered edifices or grass-topped roofs.

And then there’s the fact that the Chicago Architecture Biennial is “a manifestation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s vision for a major international architectural event.” A former White House Chief of Staff, Emanuel has faced widespread protests, dismal approval ratings, and calls for his resignation following his cover-up of the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2015. Before that, Emanuel was known for his bullish political tactics and his history of courting and accepting campaign donations from often suspect sources, such as real estate developers later awarded building permits. Over the course of his tenure as mayor, Emanuel has shuttered fifty schools, and recently generated controversy for his plan to grant high school degrees only to students with “plans for their future” in the form of job offers, college admission letters, trade apprenticeships, gap year programs, or the military. As such, like all mayors, Emanuel essentially redesigned fundamental aspects of his city (as well as Democratic party politics more broadly), from its form to its inner-workings.

Stacked against each other, the Chicago Architecture Biennial versus BP or Rahm Emanuel, there is no question who are the more influential agents in the construction of the built environment. But such an equation is misleading—the Chicago Architecture Biennial is, in fact, part of them rather than a separate entity. This is what I would like to call the real of architecture: the actual forces that are most responsible for the environments in which we dwell. In order to operate, they require the production of images, of cultural narratives. That is what the Chicago Biennial does. Like a glossy rendering that obscures the actual tectonics of a building, the Chicago Architecture Biennial engineers a benevolent façade for BP and Rahm Emanuel, helping to enable their insidious practices.

But who is responsible for this? The participants—many of whom could, and should, be described as precarious workers—require these events in order to accrue social, and ideally material, capital. Many of them, in particular those who never build, are dependent on (often tenuous) support from academic institutions, which usually require legitimation in the form of participation in these events in order to secure tenure. It’s hard to get grants or book deals if nobody has heard of you. In short, turning down an invitation on ideological grounds remains an option, but it requires a certain degree of privilege. Moreover, while such a tactic may serve the worthwhile purpose of registering discontent, the effects are minimal—the biennial will simply go on without you. This is to say, there is no real outside to the system (for now). Even the curators, while perhaps in more powerful positions, are still locked into it. Refusal appears to only have teeth if done collectively. Everyone must together agree that we can find a means of discourse production that does not depend on complicity with companies like BP (even if that means less champagne), or else those who do protest will be left on the margins, largely unheard. And, in order to develop legitimate alternatives, we must first confront the reality at hand.

Like a glossy rendering that obscures the actual tectonics of a building, the Chicago Architecture Biennial engineers a benevolent façade for BP and Rahm Emanuel, helping to enable their insidious practices. 

“Make New History” is, indeed, making new history. It is acting. But not in the way it thinks it is. The exhibition asserts a claim of disciplinary autonomy while, ironically, showcasing its fundamental contingency in the form of a little green logo at the bottom of its advertisements. In fact, its apolitical politic lubricates this dynamic. Not only do we depend on dirty money, we help wash it. As our adoration of Miesian modernism blinds us to the violences foregrounding it, so our obsession with our own cultural production—inaccessible to others and, in this case, hermetically self-involved—obscures the reality of what we are, in fact, making.  

Is it worth it?