Panel Discussion: Living With / Vivre Avec
November 9, 2025 | Chicago Architecture Biennial
Living With / Vivre Avec — From Venice to Chicago
Designed by architects Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane, in association with Éric Daniel-Lacombe and Martin Duplantier, the exhibition was first presented in Venice as the official French Pavilion of the Biennale. Presented in Chicago from November 8, 2025 to January 31, 2026, it extends that reflection and invites audiences to imagine how architecture can help sustain life amid conflict, displacement, and ecological instability.
Organized around six thematic clusters—Living with the Existing, the Immediate, the Broken, Vulnerabilities, Nature, and Combined Intelligences—Living With / Vivre Avec leads visitors through an immersive landscape of totems presenting projects and reflections from around the world. Each explores inventive ways to renew existing environments, adapt to fragility, and foster coexistence among humans, technology, and the natural world.
Developed with Chicago-based Civic Projects Architecture, the scenography reinterprets the sustainable design of the Venice Pavilion into a new, site-specific installation. Modular and reusable, the structure embodies adaptability and collective intelligence—the very principles at the heart of the exhibition’s vision.
Presented for the first time in North America, Living With / Vivre Avec resonates with CAB6’s theme, Shift: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, curated by Florencia Rodriguez. Together, these initiatives create a shared platform for architects, thinkers, and citizens to exchange ideas and imagine more resilient ways of living.
Through Living With / Vivre Avec, Villa Albertine reaffirms its mission to foster dialogue between France and the United States, connecting the worlds of architecture, culture, and public engagement across both sides of the Atlantic.
Commissioned by Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Living With / Vivre avec is made possible through the generous support of Saint-Gobain, a global leader in light and sustainable construction.
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