The 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial purports to be the largest survey of contemporary architecture to hit North America to date, and leading the monumental effort as its artistic directors are Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima. Herda has served as the director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, a project-based grant-making organization, since 2006. Grima, based in Genoa, Italy, was the editor of the design magazine Domus from 2011 to 2013. Prior to Domus, Grima directed New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture from 2007 to 2011, succeeding Herda’s tenure in the same role from 1998 to 2006. Drawing on their shared experience at Storefront and their overlapping networks, Herda and Grima together curated the Chicago Biennial, titled The State of the Art of Architecture, with an eye to innovation, idea-generation, and global dialogue.

Architectural Record: What themes were most salient as you began thinking about the biennial?