SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change is published in conjunction with the 6th Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB 2025) under the artistic direction of Florencia Rodriguez. In a world defined by crisis and uncertainty, architects are researching, relearning and reimagining, the volume marks not only a change in direction but also presents provocative inquiries about a redefinition in the substance and fundamentals of the field. It is an invitation to think with others, to project with intention, and to set new grounds for the interpretation and design of our built environments. In the same spirit, the book unfolds the many faces of SHIFT across a dynamic constellation of editorial and speculative formats through collective, multilayered, and multidimensional conversations, visual essays, and manifestos.

CAB 2025 participants’ voices are brought to print through a transcript of a five-hour conversation marathon that tackled topics such as new realism, the magic in the ordinary, pleasures in the urban, and the need to critically shift architecture’s language, as well as a repository of manifestos exploring other possible worlds. Beyond the exhibition, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change also calls upon practitioners from different fields to discuss the current state of education in architecture schools, the challenges of material culture, the future of housing, and exhibitions as devices for change.