There are just a few weeks left before the sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) debuts, curated by Florencia Rodriguez. Ahead of CAB6, the Land School—a new arts institution led by the Rebuild Foundation, the nonprofit wing of Theaster Gates—will open on September 14 in Chicago’s South Side.
The Land School is based in the former St. Laurence Elementary School at the intersection of 72nd Street and Dorchester Avenue. The elementary school was shuttered in 2002, and for years faced demolition. Its accompanying church was destroyed in 2014. Gates eventually bought the 40,000-square-foot school building for $500,000, saving it from the wrecking ball.
After making the purchase, a seven-year, $12 million restitution project kicked off to convert the former elementary school into an artist hub. The project is similar to others by Gates, a polymath with a city planning degree from Iowa State University and a long history of refurbishing Chicago buildings.
“The Land School marks a radical milestone in our work, one where—as a small, experimental arts organization invested in space redemption—we now own our tools and our facility,” Gates said in a statement.
“As we consecrate the building and celebrate our archives in this first phase of opening,” Gates added, “we are excited for the space to continue to reveal itself to us over the years. It is precisely this iterative, durational approach to our work that allows us to cultivate the full promise of Black space and creative intelligence.”
In the restitution process, the elementary school’s historic masonry structure, signature plasterwork, and decorative brick was preserved. Moving forward, Gates says the Land School will be a locus for disseminating “insights gleaned from Rebuild’s multi-decade artistic approach to place-based practice.”
This year, the Rebuild Foundation turned 15 years old. At the Land School, Gates and members of the Rebuild Foundation will “impart their strategies for confronting histories of dispossession through creative investments in land and archives as methods of community self-determination.”
After the ribbon cutting this September, the Land School will roll out more programming in phases.
This fall, Chicago-based Black chamber music collective D-Composed will become the Land School’s inaugural creative partners-in residence; together with new music recording label International Anthem and DJ and music historian Duane Powell.
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