The 2024 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival—this year’s AIA Chicago Honor Award recipient of the Robert Feldman Architecture for Social Justice Award—returns this Sunday, Oct. 6 to the James Stone Freedom Square in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood. For 20 days, the third annual festival will activate the public plaza with custom-built sukkahs, designed by five teams who reimagined the outdoor pavilion typology dedicated to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, and interactive programming accessible to the public. It is a family-friendly festival and public art and architecture exhibition, in which community organizations and designers explored the idea of urban design and creative placemaking, and speaks to themes of identity, access, and belonging in a celebration of cultural heritage and solidarity across communities.
“The Chicago Sukkah Festival celebrates cultural heritage and amplifies solidarity among the Jewish community who lived in North Lawndale historically, the predominantly Black community that resides there today, and the broader Chicago community,” said Joseph Altshuler, artistic director of Chicago Sukkah Design Festival and co-founder of the Chicago-based design practice of Could Be Design.
“During the festival days, the landscape of unique sukkah structures is activated with cross-cultural public programming, co-organized with the Lawndale Pop-Up Spot, bringing together intersectional pairings of neighborhood groups,” Altshuler added.
Could Be Design, an award-winning practice, reimagines architecture as an active character in the built environment narrative, leveraging color, form, and intimate experiences to create spaces at the intersection of play, interaction, and solidarity among communities. The practice is co-hosting the 2024 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival along with Architecture for Public Benefit, Open Architecture Chicago, and Lawndale Pop-Up Spot—which is a community museum and curatorial platform featuring exhibits by and for the North Lawndale community. Co-founded by Jonathan Kelley and Chelsea Ridley, Lawndale Pop-Up Spot is located at the Love Blooms Here Plaza adjacent the public plaza of James Stone Freedom Square at the intersection of Douglas and Millard Avenue.
“As the outdoor venue for the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival, James Stone Freedom Square treats the constellation of sukkah pavilions as an interconnected program platforms that welcomes activation by neighbors and community groups,” said Jonathan Kelley, who also served as the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival Venue Director.
The square, which serves as the venue for the festival and as the central hub of Stone Temple Baptist Church’s neighborhood campus, will feature five unique sukkahs, or architectural pavilions, for 20 days during the 2024 festival. This year’s exhibition invited teams of community collaborators and design contributors to transform the outdoor landscape, reimagining sukkahs as communal table, living structure and seed exchange, brick repository and recycling station, literacy landmark, and hospital stoop. The five teams comprised: Street Vendors Association of Chicago with Cooperation Racine; Chicago Public Library-Douglass Branch and SAIC at Homan Square with Andrea Jablonski, Martha Bayne, and Sheila Sachs; Homan Grown with Office of Dillon Pranger and Nailah Golden; Open Books and Chicago Children’s Museum with Palmyra Geraki and Alt Space; and Sinai Chicago with Lindsey Krug, Andres Camacho, and Brad Silling.
The 2024 Chicago Sukkah Design Festival’s programming is free and open to the public, featuring a kick-off celebration on Oct. 6 from 1 to 5 p.m. CT. The event schedule includes a “make-your-own local lulav” workshop led by Rachel Ellison of Bat Sarah Press from 1 to 5 p.m.; a communal Afrofuturist dance experience led by Ytasha Womack, critically acclaimed author, filmmaker, and dancer, from 2 to 3 p.m.; and a Samba workshop featuring Joshlean Fair from 3 to 3:30 p.m. There is also a Capoeira workshop featuring Dr. Kamau Rashid from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m., and a performance by the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble, featuring clarinetist Kurt Bjorling, and dancing from 4 to 5 p.m. CT. During the opening celebration, visitors can also meet the designers, explore the pavilions, enjoy food, and learn more about the harvest holiday.
The third annual exhibition also features additional public programming like “Chicago Sacred: What is a heritage of belief?” on Sunday, Oct. 13 from 2 to 4 p.m. CT, co-presented with the Chicago History Museum; Interfaith Dinner on Friday, Oct. 18 from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. CT in partnership with Stone Temple Baptist Church, Metro Chicago Hillel, and the Jewish Community Relations Council; Neighborhood Bus Tour with Shermann “Dilla” Thomas on Saturday, Oct. 19; and Architects’ Roundtable on Sunday, Oct. 20 from 2 to 4:00 p.m. CT. The roundtable features a panel discussion from the design teams moderated by Nekita Thomas, multidisciplinary artist and designer, educator, and researcher.
The sukkahs will then be relocated to their participating community organization’s facilities for permanent re-installation at the end of the festival as new program spaces.
Text: R.J. Weick
Photography: Brian Griffin for Chicago Sukkah Design Festival
