The exhibition, which is promoted by the Spanish Embassy in Washington, brings together twenty-four outstanding examples of public space interventions carried out in Spain over the last twenty years. These projects have been selected from the European Prize for Urban Public Space Archive. After being shown in Washington and Atlanta, “Polis” has now come to the prestigious Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

The exhibition is open to the public from 23 October until 30 November in Crown Hall, the famous historic landmark campus building that was designed by Mies van der Rohe.

The opening ceremony will include a speech by Joan Roig, from the BatlleRoig studio in Barcelona, two of whose works—his projects in Begues and Esplugues—are shown in the exhibition. His lecture will be followed by a panel discussion on public space, urbanism, and landscaping, with the participation of Lluís Ortega, secretary of the international jury of the European Prize for Urban Public Space, as well assuch eminent local figures as Carol Ross Barney, an architect with a long career in the design of civic spaces; Martin Felson, director of UrbanLab, an architecture and urban design office based in Chicago; and Maria Villalobos, Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism Program Director at the IIT. The discussion will be moderated by Vedran Mimica, Director of M.S. Architecture at IIT.

The dean of the IIT College of Architecture, Reed Kroloff, and Miguel Albero, cultural attaché of the Spanish Embassy in the United States, will also participate in this event.

The “Polis” exhibition offers an opportunity for students and teachers, as well as the general public, to learn about some of the most outstanding public space interventions in Spain over the last two decades. It thus opens a space for international discussion about the challenges and opportunities of public space that are being addressed in today’s global cities.