The third Chicago Architecture Biennial draws attention to the biggest issues facing today's society, but is short on architects wrangling with them, says Mimi Zeiger.

The third edition of Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) opened its doors one day before Chicago school children gathered in Mies van der Rohe's Federal Plaza as part of the Global Climate Strike. It begins during a month when President Trump feuded with California over housing policy and the state's homelessness crisis, and at a time when shootings in Chicago's West and South sides are reported every few days and the fires in Brazil continue to burn.
It was a week, like many weeks in recent memory, which underscored the themes of the biennial curated by artistic director Yesomi Umolo, curator/educator Sepake Angiama and architect Paulo Tavares. Although its lowercase title ...and other such stories might suggest a more recumbent position, this biennial is teaming with anthropogenic urgencies: violence caused by structural racism, global housing inequities, and scars left by colonisation and resource extraction.
One comes away with a deepened sense of architecture's complicity
And while exhibitions and biennales over the last decade have tackled these subjects, often showcasing the architects and designers as hopeful agents of change and architecture as a solution to a wide range of social ills ? from the Cooper Hewitt's Design for the Other 90% (2007) to MoMA's Rising Currents (2010) or Foreclosed (2012) to...