Designer of the moment: Sarah Herda, director of the Graham Foundation and co-curator of the Chicago Architecture Biennial
“Sarah Herda set out to become an architect. That she didn’t turns out for the best: a series of high-profile gigs, culminating with the Graham Foundation, have marked Herda’s march toward the intellectual center of design. When the first architecture biennial in North America launches in October, Herda will have finally arrived at her destination.”
For the cover of Newcity, I spoke to Sarah Herda about her path through architecture and her arrival at the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Much of my coverage of the inaugural edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial emphasized the ideas underlying this ambitious event, and on what impact it might make. In that context, my interview with Sarah Herda, who co-curated the first Biennial, was simultaneously a detour from my usual beat and a direct route to it.
For a cover feature in Newcity magazine, I profiled Herda’s remarkable journey through the rarified world of design culture, and her position at the top of its curatorial class. But the feature also gave readers a rare insight into the guts of the field, not just its glory. Herda was forthcoming in our conversation, sharing her ambitions for the Biennial and hinting at her anxieties: “I’ve always seen exhibitions as this incredible way to make something that someone is toiling on privately, public. That moment reverberates through the field because it is when an idea is exchanged. As opposed to merely documenting things, I’m interested in exhibitions as the site for exploration, as a kind of test site.”