City strives for tourism and cachet like the vaunted show in Venice

Aiming to boost tourism and elevate its status as a design center, Chicago next year will mount a global exhibition of cutting-edge architecture that will strive to duplicate the cachet and commercial success of a cultural spectacle in Venice, Italy.

The upstart exhibition, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to announce Tuesday, will be called the Chicago Architecture Biennial, a nod to the prestigious Venice Biennale, which just opened its 14th international architecture exhibition.

Chicago is billing its biennial as North America's biggest survey of international contemporary architecture, but the event faces a crowded field.

Besides Venice, whose architecture biennial began in 1980, scores of cities — from Sao Paulo to Istanbul to Denver — hold biennial exhibitions of art, design and architecture. Chicago will compete with them for exhibits, attention and tourists' dollars....Continue Reading

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