Chicago, 2015. All photos by Iwan Baan © – Courtesy of Chicago Architecture Biennial.

The inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial commissioned to world-renowned photographer Iwan Baan a photo-essay on the so called “Windy-City” that welcomed Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies Van Der Rohe.

Iwan Baan portrait of Chicago aims to capture the city in its daily routine focusing both on the sky-scraping downtown and the wider metropolitan area around it. Shooting from the air, the photographer emphasized key landmarks of the city’s architectural history contextualizing them within the broader cityscape.

For the first Chicago Architecture Biennial, emerging and world-reknown architects gathered from all over the planet to take over the city’ lakefronts, parks and museums.

Baan’s work includes the Hancock Tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the late 1960s and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture’s interventions on the historic Illinois Institute of Technology campus designed by Mies van der Rohe.

The artist emphasized Chicago’s ongoing role as an industrial center, as well as its defining relationship with Lake Michigan. Like the Chicago Biennial itself, Baan’s expansive photographs interpret Chicago as a realm of architectural possibility, past and future.

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Over the past decade, Iwan Baan has transformed the practice of architectural photography, challenging the long-standing habit of magazines and architects themselves of representing architecture in a staged condition, devoid of its inhabitants.

Chicago Architecture Biennial commissioned also a a trailer of the event and a short video on the city in its daily routine from below to Spirit of Space . The creative agency uses digital media to celebrate and promote a greater awareness of designed environments for the architectural profession and beyond.

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The first Chicago Architecture Biennial showcases the work and research of over 100 emerging and estabilished architects all over the panet. The event is titled The state of the Art of Architecture: until January 3, some of the most important cultural epicentres of the city will host theatre, art and music performances, stunning installations, lectures and workshops.

Videos by Spirit of Space for Chicago Architecture Biennial.