The sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial opened this weekend under the shadow of a significant boycott, as approximately 20 percent of participating architects withdrew their work or signed protest letters over the event's sponsorship ties to weapons manufacturing used in Gaza. The biennial, titled "Shift: Architecture in Times of Radical Change," found itself at the center of controversy when participants discovered the Crown Family Philanthropies' connections to military contractor General Dynamics.
On September 18, just one day before the biennial's official opening, a coalition of 21 participants sent a formal letter to the CAB 6 executive team announcing their withdrawal from the event. The architects cited the Crown Family Philanthropies' 10 percent ownership stake in General Dynamics, the world's fifth-largest military contractor, as fundamentally incompatible with their values and the event's stated mission. General Dynamics manufactures the 2,000-pound MK-84 bomb, which has been extensively used in Israel's military operations in Gaza.
Several prominent architectural firms completely withdrew their exhibitions from the biennial. These included Ethel Baraona Pohl, Anna Puigjaner, and Pol Esteve Castelló from ETH Zurich; María Buey González from C arquitectas; Lacol Arquitectura Cooperativa; MAIO; and Amaia Sánchez-Velasco, Gonzalo Valiente Oriol, and Jorge Valiente-Oriol from Grandeza Studio. Other participants chose to keep their work on display while signing the protest letter, including representatives from Burr Studio, WAI Think Tank, Space Popular, TEN, and LIGA.
In their formal protest letter, the architects expressed deep concern about what they viewed as a fundamental contradiction between the biennial's mission and its funding sources. "This assault has been characterized by several international legal experts, entities and organizations as a genocide, marked by the deliberate destruction of civilian life, the starvation of civilian population as a method of warfare, forced displacements of population, and the systematic targeting of basic infrastructure including universities, hospitals, schools, and libraries," the letter stated. The signatories emphasized that such destruction would "take generations to recover" and requested that future biennials reject funding from any sponsors involved in what they termed war crimes.
This September letter represented the second formal complaint from participants regarding Crown Family Philanthropies' involvement. The CAB executive team had previously responded to an earlier August complaint by clarifying that Crown Family funding supported educational programming rather than individual exhibitions. In an August 14 response, the executive team stated they were "actively fundraising to meet the budget needs for the 2025-26 Biennial, and are not in a financial position to return funds already committed." The team warned that returning donations so close to opening would "challenge our ability to raise the additional resources needed for this edition, and for our future."
The protesting architects offered a concrete solution to address the financial concerns, proposing to collectively replace the Crown Family Philanthropies contribution to ensure the biennial would suffer no financial hardship. However, the executive team's refusal to accept this alternative funding arrangement led the participants to conclude that "retaining this donor does not merely come from economic necessity," according to their September 18 letter. A spokesperson for CAB declined to provide additional comment beyond referring to their previous August correspondence.
This controversy represents just the latest in a series of sponsorship-related disputes that have plagued the Chicago Architecture Biennial throughout its history. The inaugural 2015 biennial accepted $2.5 million from British Petroleum (BP), leading to sustained criticism about the appropriateness of fossil fuel industry funding for an event focused on sustainable design and environmental responsibility. Critics continued to challenge this relationship, with Minh Nguyen writing in Frieze magazine in 2019, "Is the Chicago Architecture Biennial's Radical Message Compromised by Big Oil?" and Leah Gallant referring to the event as the "BP Biennial" in 2020.
The 2023 iteration of the biennial faced additional scrutiny when it accepted partial sponsorship from Krueck Sexton Partners, a Chicago architecture firm involved in planning a new U.S. Embassy in East Jerusalem. This project involved collaboration with the U.S. State Department, the Israel Land Authority, and Yigal Levi Architectural Studio, raising questions about the biennial's relationship with contested geopolitical projects.
Beyond the biennial, Crown Family Philanthropies has established itself as a significant patron of Chicago's cultural and architectural landscape. The foundation has provided substantial funding for the maintenance of S.R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology, the iconic Mies van der Rohe building named after a Crown family member. The family also funded the construction of Crown Fountain in Millennium Park, one of Chicago's most recognizable public art installations.
The Chicago Architecture Biennial controversy reflects broader tensions within the international art and architecture community regarding institutional funding and political responsibility. Similar disputes have emerged at other major cultural events, including Documenta 15 and the 13th Berlin Biennial, where executive teams faced criticism for allegedly censoring participants who sought to address Germany's relationship with Israeli policies in Gaza. These incidents highlight growing pressure on cultural institutions to carefully examine their funding sources and consider the political implications of their financial partnerships.
The timing of this controversy gained additional significance following a September 16 report from a United Nations commission that concluded Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. This international legal assessment provided additional context for the architects' concerns about participating in an event funded by organizations with financial ties to weapons manufacturers supplying the Israeli military. The protesters have created an Instagram account, "shift_right_now," to document their campaign and maintain public pressure on the biennial's organizers.
As the sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial continues its run despite the boycott, the controversy raises fundamental questions about the relationship between cultural institutions, corporate sponsorship, and political responsibility in an increasingly polarized global environment. The debate over Crown Family Philanthropies' involvement underscores the challenges facing major cultural events as they navigate complex funding relationships while maintaining credibility with participants and audiences who expect alignment between institutional values and financial partnerships.
