Parallel Histories
Parallel Histories
Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, a Haitian-born entrepreneur, arrived in Checagou (Chicago) around 1775 with his wife Kitihawa and family to establish a trading post at the confluence of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.
Over 200 years later a site bordered by similar geography would be dedicated as a public park in his honor; an overdue acknowledgment to the city’s first non-native resident. Parallel Histories explores the past, present, and future stories of DuSable and the land that birthed a modern metropolis.
Parallel Histories brings DuSable’s estate back to life; re-interpreted as pavilions dotting the future park’s untouched landscape. This call and response between the past and present celebrates a story that is hiding in plain sight and builds momentum for Chicago’s newest civic space.
Parallel Histories is designed by Carol Ross Barney, and collaborators Ryan Gann and the DuSable Park Design Alliance. In 2022, the Chicago Park District selected the DuSable Park Design Alliance (DPDA) to bring the Park to Life.
DPDA is founded, owned, and led by an African American, woman-owned architectural design firm (Brook Architecture) and a woman-owned architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design studio (Ross Barney Architects).
Project Features
Architizer—“Parallel Histories receives a Special Mention in the Architizer A+ Awards in the Pop-Ups and Temporary Category“
Chicago Reader—Discover Chicago’s layered history
World-Architects—“ ‘Parallel History’ at DuSable Park: A Step Toward a Future Park“
Dezeen—“Ross Barney Architects creates pavilion exploring “layers” of early Chicago”
Special thanks: Chicago Park District and DuSable Heritage Association
Project team: Carol Ross Barney, Ryan Gann, Annie Ball, Simon Peschong, Victor Alexander Torres, Lauren Eaton, Jenny Chemansky, Calen Heydt, Monika Plioplyte, Stella Brown, and Carlye Frank
Photography credit: Kendall McCaugherty / Hall + Merrick + McCaugherty
Parallel Histories was an installation at the 2023 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
View of DuSable Park looking east toward Navy Pier.
Who was DuSable?
Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable arrived in Checagou (Chicago) around 1778 with his wife Kitihawa and family to establish a trading post where the Chicago River and Lake Michigan met. A peninsula of reclaimed land surrounded by similar geography was dedicated by Mayor Harold Washington as a public park in his honor.
The sale of DuSable’s land, buildings, livestock and household goods in 1800 provide a glimpse into the sophisticated enterprise he operated. DuSable’s success was due in part to his complex identity: Haitian, French, African, and Potawatomi kin.
Chicago in 1779, Illustrated by Raoul Varin circa 1926-1932 © Chicago History Musem
Inventory of property owned by Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable © Chicago History Musem
1 Framehouse
2 Smokehouse
3 Bakehouse
4 Workshop
5 Cow House
6 Poultry House
7 Barn
8 Horsemill
9 Dairy House
Parallel Histories reinterprets DuSable’s estate as “line drawings” on the park site. The Framehouse (primary residence) is wrapped in a pattern that overlays Chicago’s prairie landscape with the livestock DuSable kept and two questions:
Who was DuSable?
Who found Chicago?
This call and response between the past and present builds momentum for Chicago’s newest civic space — DuSable Park.
A second “drawing” translates critical moments in Chicago’s history with the geographic movement of the Chicago River. Some of these histories are contested, painful, and celebratory: unceded homelands, the arrival of Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and the reversal of the Chicago River.
The resulting geometry captures the layered histories of Chicago in a single composition.
Parallel Histories, 2023
