Craig L. Wilkins

Craig L. Wilkins is the former director of the Detroit Community Design Center at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning, where he is currently an associate professor. He is the author of The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture & Music and Diversity Among Architects: From Margin to Center. A 2017 Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum National Design Award winner, his practice specializes in engaging communities in collaborative and participatory design processes.

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The problem with being a deliberative writer is that pretty much everything has already been penned by the time you’re ready to write about something. Such is the case with the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB): The Available City. There have been several well-written, insightful essays about the CAB by Zach Mortice, Anjulie Rao, Marianela D’Aprile, and others, so it would be foolish to travel the landscape they have so expertly traversed. Instead, I’m offering a trip through this edition of the CAB, which concluded a successful and significant run on Saturday, down a road less traveled.

Craig L. Wilkins •••

Breaking the Dead Paradigm For Design Exhibitions

Craig L. Wilkins