The Chicago Architecture Biennial has announced the opening of the CAB Studio, a new, year-round exhibition space located on the first floor of the Chicago Cultural Center. The studio will be a space to explore design and present innovative ideas. It will host exhibitions, programs, and events, along with youth and family activities.  

CAB Studio will open with the exhibition, Architecture of Reparations, by New York-based collaborative Riff Studio, including designers Isabel Strauss, Rekha Auguste-Nelson, and Farnoosh Rafaie. It incorporates a study of public policy, architectural history, and reparations to tell the story of the erasure in Bronzeville, a historic Black neighborhood in the South Side of Chicago. This is the focus and outcome of a thesis project by Strauss while studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. 

The exhibition uncovers the history and tells the story of the “slum” clearance program, engineered by city and state governments, that facilitated land condemnation and acquisition for private gain resulting in the displacement of thousands of Black families. On view is a visual narrative of Bronzeville’s architectural history, along with responses received from a public request for proposals that was issued to garner ideas for restorative housing. Responses imagine futures for Bronzeville while acknowledging its history and beauty by confronting vacancy, displacement, and disinvestment. 

Architecture of Reparations opens on March 30, 2022. More information on the exhibition, including the RFP contributors, can be seen here.