U.S. Pavilion Organizers Announce Exhibitors and Associate Curator for the 2018 Venice Biennale

Williams and Hernandez won the 2016 PXSTL design-build competition.
Image courtesy of Michael B. Thomas / Pulitzer Arts Foundation

Amanda Williams & Andres L. Hernandez of Chicago.
Photo courtesy Andres L. Hernandez, Nicole Harrison

After Belonging, DESIGN EARTH’s drawing presented at the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale with Reid Fellenbaum, Ya Suo, Jia Weng, Shuya Xu, Saswati Das and contributions from Rixt Woudstra.
Image courtesy DESIGN EARTH

Rania Ghosn and El Hadi Jazairy, founding partners of DESIGN EARTH.
Photo courtesy Design Earth

The Shed designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Rockwell Group seen from 30th Street looking northwest.
Image courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Diller Scofidio + Renfro principal Benjamin Gilmartin with founding partners Elizabeth Diller, Charles Renfro, and Ricardo Scofidio
Photo courtesy Diller Scofidio + Renfro

A UCSD cross-border station reimagined as a public space for education in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman’s Cross-Border Community Station.
Image © Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman

Fonna Forman and Teddy Cruz, principals in Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman.
Photo courtesy Estudio Teddy Cruz + Forman

Subtraction Protocol 3 Forest, Keller Easterling, 2015.
Image courtesy Kellery Easterling

Keller Easterling, architect, writer and professor at Yale University.
Photo courtesy Keller Easterling

SCAPE’s Living Breakwaters in Staten Island, New York.
Image © SCAPE Landscape Architecture DPC

Kate Orff, founder of SCAPE.
Photo © Ethan Hill, Redux Pictures

Studio Gang’s upcoming Rescue Company 2 to be built in Brooklyn in 2018.
Image © Studio Gang

Jeanne Gang, principal of Studio Gang.
Photo © Sally Ryan

Curators from left to right: associate curator Iker Gil, and curators Mimi Zeiger, Niall Atkinson, and Ann Lui.
Photo © Nancy Wong















The organizers of the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale have selected a group of seven architects, designers, and landscape architects to create work for the exhibition Dimensions of Citizenship at the 16th edition of the international exposition.
Exhibitors will include artists Amanda Williams & Andres L. Hernandez of Chicago; Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm Design Earth; Diller Scofidio + Renfro and SCAPE, both based in New York, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman of San Diego, California; New Haven, Connecticut-based Keller Easterling; and Chicago’s Studio Gang.
Running from May 26 to November 25, 2018, Dimensions of Citizenship will grapple with the idea of belonging and the meaning of being a citizen. Each team will investigate a different “special condition of design and citizenship,” according to a statement from the show’s two institutional co-commissioners, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the University of Chicago.
Earlier this month, the organizers announced three curators who will steer the exhibition: the University of Chicago’s Niall Atkinson, an associate professor of art history; architect Ann Lui, an assistant professor at SAIC and the co-founder of Chicago-based Future Firm; and Mimi Zeiger, a Los Angeles-based architecture critic, curator, and educator. The trio is joined by SAIC faculty member Iker Gil, the director of MAS Studio, as associate curator. SAIC and the University of Chicago will serve as co-commissioners of the show.
The organizers have also assembled a curatorial advisory board, comprised of public artist and designer Theaster Gates; Graham Foundation director Sarah Herda, who co-curated the inaugural Chicago Biennial; University of Chicago’s Bill Brown; SAIC’s Mary Jane Jacob; and artist and designer Oliver Palmer.
The Biennale will be curated as a whole by Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of Grafton Architects, around the theme “Freespace.”
Coverage of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale sponsored by Hunter Douglas Architectural.