Architects:Balsa Crosetto Piazzi,Giorgis Ortiz

Year:2025

Category:Temporary Installations

With The Support Of:BRICKS INC, MIT CAST — Fay Chandler Creativity Grant, Virginia Tech School of Architecture (College of Architecture, Arts, and Design — AAD), MIT Architecture, Bienal de Arquitectura de Chicago, Griffin Museum of Science and Industry

In Collaboration With Students From The Virginia Tech School Of Architecture:Gabriella Riethmueller, Isabella Valant, Steven Waker, Dane Sosna, Abigail Bogin, Julian Dunn, Daniel Robles, Fernando Rosales, Hudeeja Ijaz, Vy Le, Alaina Cerven, Logan Safranek, Lucy Thomas

In Collaboration With The Mit School Of Architecture:Joyce Tullis

City:Chicago

Country:United States

Traces is a new collective space in Jackson Park, constructed from 10,000 dry-stacked bricks.

Situated on the site of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the project reflects on the monumental scale of the exhibition and the techniques used to simulate permanence, white spray paint and plaster applied to temporary structures to resemble neoclassical architecture.

These buildings were never meant to last; they acted as props within the spectacle of the fair.

The installation takes the form of a long, shallow brick line that traces the footprint of the Great Buildings, those central to the Fair of 1893.

By using a durable material like brick in an impermanent, unbound way, Traces offers a quiet critique of shifting architectural values: from spectacle to substance, from permanence as illusion to impermanence as intention.

Traces is both a curated reconstruction of what was lost and a framework for what might come, a collective space shaped not by nostalgia, but by presence, activated again during this century’s own architectural event: the Biennial.

Project gallery