Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 Hosts Compelling Exhibition of Indian Master Doshi

Architectural Record Ι Sept. 16, 2020 As the first Pritzker Prize laureate from the south Asian subcontinent, with a seven-decade career, Balkrishna Doshi is easily viewed as a Modernist standard bearer for Indian architecture. And Balkrishna Doshi: Architecture for the People now at Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 (its only stop in North America) plays up Doshi’s… Continue reading Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 Hosts Compelling Exhibition of Indian Master Doshi

New Composite Building Materials Are Redefining Modernism at Exhibit Columbus

Redshift Ι July 2, 2018  Since the advent of modernism, architects have dreamed of the perfect material to unify structure and surface. Steel beams and glass windows were the 20th century’s solution, combining the elements holding up buildings and the elements covering buildings into one tidy duo. This century, academic researchers are throwing out this… Continue reading New Composite Building Materials Are Redefining Modernism at Exhibit Columbus

‘Dimensions of Citizenship’ Dreams of Belonging Best at the Smallest and Largest Scales

Architectural Record Ι March 19, 2019 The opening of “Dimensions of Citizenship,” shipped from the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale to Chicago, was delayed by the government shutdown in January, caused by President Trump’s insistence on funding for a border wall. Which was an unanticipated irony: it’s a show whose politics are also our… Continue reading ‘Dimensions of Citizenship’ Dreams of Belonging Best at the Smallest and Largest Scales

‘The Whole World a Bauhaus’ Reveals a Movement’s Fault Lines

The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι March 13, 2019 The centenary exhibition “The Whole World a Bauhaus” is touring the globe, and is now making its only U.S. stop, through April 20, at the Elmhurst Art Museum in the western suburbs of Chicago. (The Elmhurst has earned its stripes, boasting a house on its campus designed by… Continue reading ‘The Whole World a Bauhaus’ Reveals a Movement’s Fault Lines

New Views into an Unheralded Element of Mies

scan made from original HB 8x10 BW negative

Architectural Record Ι June 25, 2018  A new exhibit at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois explores a little-studied corner of Mies van der Rohe’s career: his brief fascination with pre-fabrication.  The show, curated by Columbia University’s Barry Bergdoll, is physically and thematically anchored by Mies’ McCormick House, which was built in 1952 as a prototype… Continue reading New Views into an Unheralded Element of Mies

Chicago Exhibit Spotlights Charlotte Perriand’s Alpine Ski Resort

Metropolis Magazine Ι May 23, 2018  The most impressive item depicted at Matthew Rachman’s exhibit of Charlotte Perriand–designed furniture is conspicuously absent from his Chicago gallery—it was too big to fit. The object in question, a gleaming red and white prefab bathroom produced for the designer’s Les Arcs ski resort in the French Alps, was an… Continue reading Chicago Exhibit Spotlights Charlotte Perriand’s Alpine Ski Resort

Here Comes Chicago’s Architecture Bonanza

CityLab Ι June 29, 2017 In 2015, Chicago launched the largest contemporary architecture event in North America—the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Staged at multiple sites around the city (including the lakefront) and drawing more than half a million visitors over three months, it was a wide shotgun blast in terms of content, with techno-psychedelic body-horror sketches, demonstrations… Continue reading Here Comes Chicago’s Architecture Bonanza