Cohabitation Strategies (CohStra) was invited to contribute to the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial titled…and other such stories. Drawing from over ten years of practice and collaborations across neighborhoods, cities, and nations Urban Front emerged as an outgrowth of Cohstra’s work expanding the organization’s global capacity under the leadership of Miguel Robles-Durán and long term collaborator urban geographer David Harvey early this year.
Urban Front is a transnational consultancy group formed by independent associates around the world. With headquarters in Barcelona, Medellin, Montevideo, New York City, Ottawa, Paris, Quito and Rotterdam, the group provides trans-disciplinary research support and tactical directions to progressive governments, non-governmental organizations, and foundations on critical socio-spatial matters relating to uneven urban development and environmental degradation. Worldwide, Urban Front connects committed scientific expertise, artistic, and design practice with grassroots active knowledge by co-developing new approaches for producing socially and environmentally just transformative outcomes.
Urban Front is exhibiting ongoing work in Barcelona, where local housing activists have been pressuring the city government to convert a central area currently devoted to an annual trade fair to the development of affordable progressive, living models and anti-gentrification planning strategies.
Urban Front members include Ruedi Baur, David Bravo, Joseph Bohigas, Pablo Caballero, Mauro Castro, Alejandro Echeverri, Leilani Farha, Laia Forné, Emiliano Gandolfi, David Harvey, Jeanne van Heeswijk, Rubén Martínez Moreno, Jaime Palomera, Laura Raicovich, Gabriela Rendón, Miguel Robles-Durán, Ana Rodriguez Lud, and Gala Pin.
CohStra’s long-time collaborator Juan Pablo Pemberty collaborated in this exhibition along with Sean Scanlan, Steve Davis, and Rachel Crist.
Chicago Architecture Biennial opens to the public on Thursday, September 19.