Tuning in to Chicago

Chicago Design

When Armand Mevis and Linda van Deursen came to Chicago to work with the MCA, they first undertook an exploration of the city, from its climate to its city plan.

Linda van Deursen: When you first come to a new city, it's—and if you are already confronted with this question of developing an identity—you're kind of very sensitive [to] everything that happens in that city. You're sensitive to the environment. You're sensitive to the climate, which is, in our opinion, incredibly dramatic. The changes that we experienced from actually visiting the place, first at the winter, and again in the summer, really made us think of even considering an identity which would have a summer element and a winter element. Maybe even thinking about the museum as a place that would be opened up from the backyard, which then you would go from the garden into the museum, and then maybe in the winter it's kind of a very closed environment. So we were thinking of all these things, and we considered—yeah, when you start freely thinking about it, quite radical and crazy things at first.

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