Architects’ Newspaper Ι March 21, 2023 Drawn in by the propulsive four-on-the-floor bass that could be heard blocks away through the then-derelict streets of Chicago’s West Loop, in the late 1970s and early ’80s young club-goers gathered at a modest but stylish three-story former industrial warehouse where the party raged from midnight until 8:00 a.m.… Continue reading Preservation Chicago names The Warehouse, the birthplace of house music, as one of the most endangered buildings in Chicago
Tag: Chicago
Mary Dill Henry’s Life-long Search for the “Vital Forces” of Art and Technology
Jan. 25, 2023 Ι Metropolis Magazine As an art student from California studying at László Moholy-Nagy’s Institute of Design in the mid-1940s, Mary Dill Henry described the world as such in her MFA thesis: “The world we live in is a vast and beautiful place, full of vital forces that work upon us and within… Continue reading Mary Dill Henry’s Life-long Search for the “Vital Forces” of Art and Technology
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
Could Be Architecture Says Friendly Design Makes Us Kinder Humans
Metropolis Magazine Ι May 2022 Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison, collectively known as Could Be Architecture (CBA), have one question they apply to everything they design: “Is it creaturely?”
The Focal Point Community Campus promises to expand healthcare in a Chicago neighborhood where it’s badly needed. So why isn’t everyone on board?
Architects’ Newspaper Ι May 16, 2022 On paper, the Focal Point Community Campus project in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood seems like a boon for the predominantly poor and multigenerational Latinx residents who live there. Spearheaded by Guy Medaglia, the project would build a new facility for Saint Anthony Hospital, which Medaglia heads as president and CEO.… Continue reading The Focal Point Community Campus promises to expand healthcare in a Chicago neighborhood where it’s badly needed. So why isn’t everyone on board?
Chicago Biennial Returns to Michigan Avenue Cultural Center with New Exhibition Space
April 26, 2022 Ι Architectural Record From its permaculture food gardens to neighborhood brick-making workshops, to robot-traced empty lot block party takeovers, the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB)— under the direction of artistic director David Brown—was very much at home far from the downtown space that hosted previous biennials. But this spring, the Biennial is… Continue reading Chicago Biennial Returns to Michigan Avenue Cultural Center with New Exhibition Space
In the Tank
April 2022 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine Smoke stacks of deserted steel plants keep the skyline of Big Marsh Park in Chicago spare. an Wetlands dominate the soggy ground between Lake Michigan and Lake Calumet, Chicago’s other Great Lake, so endlessly dredged and filled that it’s become a hammer-headed series of slips and canals. This part of… Continue reading In the Tank
The North Lawndale Employment Network Sees Through Employment Barriers for the Formerly Incarcerated
February 17, 2022 Ι Metropolis Magazine Even from outside the new North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) building on Chicago’s West Side, where approximately half of residents live in poverty and the neighborhood’s many architectural treasures suffer from brutal disinvestment, passersby can see through two layers of glass into the heart of the building, where formerly… Continue reading The North Lawndale Employment Network Sees Through Employment Barriers for the Formerly Incarcerated
Chicago’s Bungalows Are Where the City Comes Together
February 9, 2022 Ι Bloomberg CityLab In Chicago, there are plenty of reasons for South Side residents to keep Northsiders at arm’s length. This includes the North Side’s nonsensical lack of numbered streets, opposed baseball fandoms, and the outsized power of the city’s wealthier half — an imbalance that has created one of the most… Continue reading Chicago’s Bungalows Are Where the City Comes Together
New Exhibition Shines a Light on George Fred Keck’s Solar Home of 1933
February 8, 2022 Ι Architectural Record Chicago architect George Fred Keck (1895-1980) unlike many of his Modernist contemporaries, was a technocrat and tinkerer first and foremost. Long before the advent of solar panels, his solar homes sought to use new technology and materials to make architecture congruent with climate. His 12-sided House of Tomorrow, built in… Continue reading New Exhibition Shines a Light on George Fred Keck’s Solar Home of 1933