Tag Archives: Chicago Architecture Biennial

BP Student Design Competition

Education, ,

In conjunction with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Founding Sponsor BP and Signature Education Partner Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF), the BP Student Design Competition is returning this fall.

This began in 2015 (the first ever Chicago Architecture Biennial) and, like that one, aspiring artists and architects from the city’s elementary and high schools will be able to create projects challenging around this year’s theme, “Make New History.”  Entrants will have to design solutions for two different Chicago-centric challenges, focusing on how our every day lives can be transformed by the built environment.

As Mayor Rahm Emanuel explained:

“The BP Student Design Competition is a unique hands-on experience for Chicago students to challenge their creative thinking and develop their passion in architecture and design. The educational partnership with the Chicago Architecture Foundation engages our young artists and architects by giving them the opportunity to participate in a range of opportunities in neighborhoods across the city.”

This year also new educational initiatives were proposed by the Chicago Architecture Biennial (and CAF), in an attempt to expand its reach to communities throughout the city.

 

Chicago Celebrates the Art of Architecture

Business News
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois. Photographer: David K. Staub
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, Illinois. Photographer: David K. Staub

The first Chicago Architecture Biennial opened to the public last week, and is worth a visit. The exhibition features the projects of 100 designers brought together from 30 different counties spanning six continents.

The theme of the fair is well expressed in it title, “The State of the Art of Architecture.” The projects are intellectually challenging, joyful, futuristic, humanistic, and smart. Today’s architects joined together to truly confront the modern social issues head-on.

On the minds of these artists are such current concerns as global warming, income disparity, housing shortages and more. As the show states itself, “None of these (issues) are spatial questions alone, but none can be effectively addressed without design.”

The event is sponsored by Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events together with the Graham Foundation. The Foundation is a Chicago-based architectural grant-making organization.  At a cost of about $6.5 million the exhibition brings together a large collection of models, renderings, films, installations, and even some impressive doodles.

The exhibition is hosted at the Chicago Cultural Center at 78 E. Washington Street, a space which perfectly references the incredible classicism of the first Chicago architectural celebration, the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The event is free to the public and is running until January 3rd, 2016.