2026 Burnham Prize — The Future of State: Chicago Architectural Club

Competition Brief

The Chicago Architectural Club has launched the 2026 Burnham Prize — The Future of State, an open international urban design and architecture competition calling for bold, future-facing proposals to reimagine State Street as Chicago’s “Great Street.” The competition is organized in partnership with World Business Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago Loop Alliance, and the Loop Arts District. The total prize fund is $8,000 USD. Registration closes 15 June 2026 and submissions are due 20 July 2026 at 5:00pm CT.

State Street is the historic central corridor of Chicago’s Loop, running from the Chicago River south to Roosevelt Road — approximately 1.5 miles. It was shaped by architects including Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, Dankmar Adler, and Holabird and Root, and defined by major department stores from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. The competition addresses the corridor’s current moment of transition: post-pandemic vacancy, the shift to hybrid work, changing retail patterns, and a growing residential population in the Loop create both challenge and opportunity for the street’s reinvention.

Intent

The competition calls for proposals that transform State Street from a throughfare into a destination — a mixed-use corridor that serves residents, workers, families, students, and visitors year-round and that can also function as a citywide civic stage for major events. Proposals should demonstrate how design, preservation, landscape, culture, and community — alongside economic and policy strategies — can revitalize and diversify the corridor.

The brief is deliberately broad. Submissions may focus on one or multiple topics and may operate at the urban or building scale. Strategies for retail revitalization, increased residential presence, adaptive reuse, evolving workplace models, and a more diverse program mix are all invited. Entries will be assessed on the clarity of issues identified and the effectiveness of proposals in addressing them through bold, future-facing visions.

The brief situates the competition historically: State Street rose as Chicago’s primary civic and retail corridor from 1868 through the mid-twentieth century, declined through suburban flight, urban disinvestment, and the failed pedestrianization experiment of 1979–1996, and is now at a critical inflection point. Events like Sundays on State and Arts in the Dark have demonstrated the corridor’s civic potential. The planned reconstruction of the State and Lake CTA station signals renewed public investment. The City’s Central Area planning efforts and an Urban Land Institute study have identified State Street as a priority corridor for reinvestment.

Site

State Street corridor from the Chicago River to Roosevelt Road, Chicago, Illinois, USA. CAD plan of the corridor and key background resources are provided to registered participants as base materials.

Program

Program is to be determined by entrants as an integral part of their proposals. The brief explicitly invites strategies across retail, housing, office, business, schools, culture, entertainment, and the arts. No single typology is mandated — the brief rewards integrated strategic thinking across multiple program dimensions.

Requirements

Open to all — no professional qualifications required. Teams of any size. Registration required before submission. To register, email the competition organizers or follow the link at chicagoarchitecturalclub.org/the-future-of-state. Students must email a PDF copy of a valid current student ID to receive the student rate.

Submissions consist of three files saved in a single ZIP file not exceeding 10MB, submitted by email to info@chicagoarchitecturalclub.org with the subject line “Registration Number_[your 5-digit number]”:

1. A single 24″ × 36″ poster in portrait orientation as a PDF named with the 5-digit registration number (e.g. “12345.pdf”). The registration number must appear in the lower right-hand corner.

2. A written statement of no more than 500 words in .txt, .doc, or .rtf format (NOT .pdf), named “Statement_12345.doc.”

3. A single team identification page including project title, team member names, leader’s telephone number and email. Named “ID_12345.doc” in .txt, .doc, or .rtf format. Sources of any third-party materials must also be included.

Jury

1. Carol Ross Barney, FAIA — Design Principal and Founder, Ross Barney Architects. Chicago-based practice known for major civic and urban infrastructure projects including the Chicago Riverwalk and Chicago Transit Authority stations.
2. Elizabeth Blasius — Historian, Writer, and Partner, Preservation Futures. Specialist in architectural history, preservation, and urban narrative.
3. Phil Enquist, FAIA — University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs. Former Partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Led SOM’s urban design and planning practice for decades.
4. Eleanor Esser Gorski, AIA — CEO and President, Chicago Architecture Center. Leads Chicago’s primary public architecture education and advocacy institution.
5. Reed Kroloff — Dean, College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Architectural educator, critic, and former editor-in-chief of Architecture magazine.
6. Anjulie Rao — Journalist and Critic. Architecture and urban design critic with published work across major design media.
7. Irene Sunwoo — John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design, The Art Institute of Chicago. Leads the architecture and design collection and programming at one of the United States’ foremost art museums.
8. Ernest C. Wong, PLA, FASLA, APA — Founding Principal, Site Design Group. Chicago-based landscape architecture and urban design practice with significant civic and public realm projects in the Chicago region.

Registration Fees

Student rate requires a PDF copy of a valid current student ID submitted by email. Registration closes 15 June 2026. No late registration.

Prizes and Rewards

Total prize pool: $8,000 USD (including honoraria for all exhibited projects). At jury discretion, one proposal may be selected for possible implementation pending available funding through grant applications led by the Chicago Architectural Club in collaboration with the selected team.

Key Dates

✦ ArchUp Competition Review

The 2026 Burnham Prize is organized by the Chicago Architectural Club — one of the oldest and most respected independent architectural organizations in the United States, with a documented history stretching back to the late nineteenth century — in partnership with World Business Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago Loop Alliance, and the Loop Arts District. This institutional coalition is substantive: the partners represent both the civic governance infrastructure of downtown Chicago and its primary architectural and cultural organizations. The competition is named in honor of Daniel Burnham, whose 1909 Plan of Chicago remains one of the most influential urban planning documents in American history, and whose buildings directly shaped State Street’s physical character. The jury is exceptionally credentialed: Carol Ross Barney designed the Chicago Riverwalk; Phil Enquist led SOM’s urban design practice for decades; Irene Sunwoo curates architecture and design at the Art Institute of Chicago; Ernest Wong’s Site Design Group has shaped Chicago’s public realm; and Reed Kroloff leads IIT’s architecture college. This is a genuine professional jury with deep Chicago context, not a generic commercial selection panel. The brief is one of the most substantive civic urban design competition briefs available in 2026: State Street is a real place with documented history, a complex set of current conditions, and active policy and planning momentum that means winning proposals will be shared with the organizations shaping the corridor’s actual future — and one may be selected for implementation pending grant funding. The $3,000 first prize and total $8,000 pool are modest relative to the complexity of the brief, but the civic weight of the platform — exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Center, sharing with World Business Chicago and city partners, potential implementation pathway — gives the competition real professional consequence beyond the prize money. The $50 early-bird registration (closing 15 May 2026) and $25 student rate make it accessible. For architects, urban designers, planners, and landscape architects with an interest in American urban civic design, the rejuvenation of historic commercial corridors, or Chicago specifically, this is one of the most intellectually and professionally meaningful competitions available in 2026.

Final Thoughts

The Burnham Prize 2026 is a rare competition that combines genuine civic ambition, a distinguished jury with deep contextual knowledge, an active institutional coalition of partners, and a potential implementation pathway for winning work. It asks a genuinely complex design question at urban scale about a real corridor in one of the world’s great architectural cities.

The early registration deadline of 15 May 2026 has passed, making the current registration fee $75 ($50 for students) through the final deadline of 15 June 2026. The submission deadline of 20 July 2026 gives teams approximately two months from now to develop a considered proposal. The single 24×36 poster and 500-word statement format is a low-barrier submission requirement that rewards conceptual clarity and urban vision over production volume. The public exhibition on 17 October 2026 and the Arts Fest on State Street give all shortlisted entries a high-visibility public audience at the very site the competition addresses.

Registration Deadline

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