Gallery Image Gallery Image Gallery Image

Assistant Professor Leandro Piazzi along with his firm BALSA CROSETTO PIAZZI and GIORGIS ORTIZ will be participating in this year's Chicago Biennial.

TRACES-Chicago Architecture Biennial

Authors: BALSA CROSETTO PIAZZI (Juan Manuel

Balsa, Rocio Crosetto Brizzio, Leandro Piazzi)

GIORGIS ORTIZ (Adriana Giorgis & Evan Ortiz)

Location: The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry

Year: 2025

Supported by: Chicago Architecture Biennial Virginia Tech-School of Architecture,College of Architecture, Arts, and Design(AAD) Massachusetts Institute of Technology-MIT Office of the Arts-MIT Fay Chandler

CAST GrantBricks Incorporated

TRACES is a site-specific installation composed of 10,000 dry-stacked bricks, located on the grounds of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, where the 1893 ChicagoWorld's Fair once stood.The project invites reflection on the monumental ambitions of the Fair and the construction logics that made them possible, specifically the use of"staff,"a mixture of plaster and fiber applied over wood, which enabled the rapid fabrication of neoclassical facades. These grand buildings, though monumental in appearance, were temporary by design, constructed to simulate permanence and lend theatrical weight to a short-lived project.The installation takes the form of a long, shallow brick line, 250 feet by 50 feet, that traces the original footprint of the Great Buildings of the Fair. These structures represented innovation and spectacle, both in scale and symbolism, yet their facades served as four-sided stage sets rather than the buildings they were meant to represent