Chicago critic Blair Kamin’s Who is the City For? takes aim at aesthetic bungles while thornier issues go largely unaddressed

Architect’s Newspaper Ι Nov. 4, 2022 In a 2011 column, “Signs Uglify Our Beautiful Bridges,” anthologized in Blair Kamin’s book Who Is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago, the recently retired Chicago Tribune architecture critic takes aim at garish vinyl Bank of America (BoA) ads affixed to the Wabash Avenue… Continue reading Chicago critic Blair Kamin’s Who is the City For? takes aim at aesthetic bungles while thornier issues go largely unaddressed

What We Talk About When We Talk About Architecture

February 12, 2021 Ι Architects Newspaper  In early June, I put on a white KN95 mask and a black sweater and left my apartment like thousands of other Chicagoans to protest the murder of Black Americans by police. An hour or so of marching and chanting culminated at an intersection near my home dominated by… Continue reading What We Talk About When We Talk About Architecture

UIC’s Instagrammable Moment

Architect Magazine Ι Aug. 31, 2017  The piñatas that hang over a wide, terraced stairwell are distinctly biomorphic but don’t resemble any earthly species of fauna. There are bulbous limbs and neon colors, but these David Cronenbergian monstrosities are rendered in papier-maché. Antonio Torres, the architecture professor whose studio created them, says the project was… Continue reading UIC’s Instagrammable Moment