The Avery Review, a digital journal about books, buildings, and other
architectural media, makes its print debut with a thematic broadsheet
edition about the city of Chicago. Coinciding with the inaugural Chicago
Architectural Biennial, this issue addresses the historic imagination of
the city (including figures of myth like Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van
der Rohe, and even John Dillinger) and possibilities for the
contemporary urban landscape (including discussions of placemaking,
contemporary cultural monuments, and infrastructural parks). Selected
pieces from the Avery Review's first year are republished alongside
these commissioned essays on Chicago. Together these texts claim the
critical essay as a space in which to test one's own intellectual
commitments, to enter into and advance a conversation about the pasts
and futures of urban architectural thought.