As we predicted in Flat Out 3, the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial had very little to do with architecture. This was partly due to the false premise underlining the curatorial agenda: narrowly define Architecture as exuberant building form, use this definition to discredit all architecture, and then replace said definition with a new one—that architecture is an “expansive practice that crosses disciplines and scales,” which is really just a long-winded way of saying architecture is art and activism (what the biennial was about, anyway). The straw man compelled commissioner Mark Kelly to announce at the opening press conference that the biennial would “push us beyond architectural models,” and executive director Todd Palme—an architect by training—to declare that “the field of architecture has a lot to learn from this biennale,” confirming that the exhibition had little to do with architecture in the first place. Artistic director Yesomi Umolu subsequently tried to explain to an audience of (largely) non-architects that an “architecture of advocacy” meant “activating discourse in the city” at a panel during the opening weekend, but as the earnest discussion ensued, that definition quickly dissipated into “act of looking,” “stewardship,” “community process,” and “opportunity of healing.” Suffice it to say for those of us working in architecture, it was all a bit fuzzy and thin on the ground.

Architecture is never just building: it can be drawing, installation, publication, idea, exhibition. Had the artistic directors embraced this characterization, the biennial may have gotten closer to delivering some architecture at least in terms of its exhibition design. Unfortunately, the jettisoning of architecture’s formal-aesthetic dimension extended to many of the installations themselves, which were obfuscated by too much text and dreadful graphics, resulting in a very unpleasant viewing experience. The noble and important ambitions of the show—“to reflect on the social, geopolitical, ecological processes that inform cities”—would have been far better served by installations that directly engaged with the Cultural Center’s beautiful spaces, colors, and textures—that is, things architectural. One exception in the mess was Maria Gaspar’s Unblinking Eyes,  Watching, a breathtaking photograph of a historic public-facing wall at Cook County Jail installed at one-to-one scale in a second floor gallery. The work communicated the soul of “other such stories.” It was terrifying in its beauty. It was moving in its meaning(s). It was exquisitely executed. If only the biennial had propagated other such images.