Chicago Architecture Biennial 2023

The fifth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, CAB 5: This is a Rehearsal, curated by the interdisciplinary arts collective the Floating Museum, takes an expansive view of design as an iterative rehearsal process to explore architecture, cities, and the different social, ecological, economic and political forces that shape them. From artists, architects, engineers, performers, poets, and others, the practitioners represented in CAB 5 collectively set the stage for the cross-pollination of ideas in order to challenge and envision alternatives for the following: how we understand and address the needs of a city, who plays a role in imagining and making the city, and how our potential solutions attend to the overlapping crises that now inform our everyday lives.

Cities are always evolving—continuously shaped and reshaped by the millions of people who inhabit them through a process of action and reaction. Over time, the accumulation of buildings and infrastructure creates a layered index of the ideals and policies of past generations. Rehearsal invites new possibilities through open dialogue, creative invention, and a generative process of discovery to understand how hope and care can emerge in architecture. Harnessing dialogue is paramount to CAB 5’s conception of rehearsal. It is a productive tool that establishes new lines of thinking that question the status quo through modes ranging from conversations and performances to installations, drawings, and new technologies. In this sense, CAB 5 welcomes alternative ways of making architecture and engages everyone to rethink, rework, and reimagine the present and future of cities.