Marianne Mueller turns her attention to the architecture of the venue, in this case the Chicago Cultural Center, in order to focus on the moments when the different stages of its life enter into contact with each other. Through her hunter-gatherer approach, which is rooted in the photographic tradition of the snapshot, and her deep understanding of architecture as being made up of a series of elements that are in essence democratic, Mueller captures the clashes between the noble architecture of the center’s nineteenth-century building and the contemporary generic materials of the additions and partitions that enable its many functions today. Her blown up prints of fragments of the building interiors, installed in the vitrines at the G.A.R. Hall, open up a meta dialog about the representational role of architecture and its interiors. In doing so, Mueller’s work becomes a testament to our changing notions of public space and public institutions and, more critically, to the resilience and the capacity of architecture to survive and renew itself through time—to traverse history and speak the different languages of its present.

Jesús Vassallo (A Love of the World. The Photography of the 2017 Chicago Architectural Biennial, in: Make New History, 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial, Lars Müller Publishers, Zurich)