Book Description
As the world confronts climate change, housing shortages, resource transformation, and growing social uncertainty, can architecture still be understood primarily through form, style, and aesthetics? SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change offers a compelling response to this question. Published as the official companion volume to the sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2025, the book takes the concept of "SHIFT" as its central theme, examining how architecture can redefine its purpose during a period of profound global change and how designers might respond more consciously to cities, the environment, and everyday life.
Rather than functioning as a conventional exhibition catalogue, the book serves as a collection of contemporary architectural thought. Through conversations, visual essays, manifestos, and critical texts, it brings together the voices of architects, curators, researchers, and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines. Contributors explore emerging realities, the magic embedded in everyday life, the role of joy within cities, and the reasons why architecture's own language must continue to evolve. More than documenting an exhibition, the publication presents the Biennial as a platform for ideas, demonstrating how architecture is responding to today's crises and an increasingly unpredictable future.
SHIFT places particular emphasis on architecture as a collaborative process rather than simply the creation of individual buildings. The book expands its discussion to include architectural education, material culture, future housing, and the role of exhibitions as catalysts for new ways of thinking. As a result, it speaks not only to architects but also to readers interested in urbanism, design, curatorial practice, social issues, and contemporary culture. Throughout its pages, the book reminds us that the true value of architecture lies not only in constructing buildings, but in continually asking essential questions: How should we live together? How should we use our resources? And how might we imagine the environments of the future?
For readers of architecture and design, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change is an essential publication that captures the spirit of its time. Rather than offering definitive solutions, it embraces openness, critical reflection, and intellectual exchange, presenting architecture as a discipline navigating extraordinary complexity. As the world continues to transform, architecture must transform with it—and this book documents the ideas, debates, and visions that are shaping that ongoing shift.
Details
Authors: Santiago Bogani, Igo Kommers Wender, Isabella Moretti, Florencia Rodriguez
Publisher: Park Books
Publication Year: 2026
Dimensions: 27 × 20 cm
Binding: Paperback
