High in the Sky, Where the Money Stacks Up

Aerial view of First National Bank building in Chicago, Illinois, circa 1969.

August 31, 2023 Ι Architects’ Newspaper In the 1960s, the same Chicago city agency conjured some of the worst and the best in American residential high-rises, and in rapid succession. The Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) Robert Taylor Homes were the nation’s largest public housing project when they opened in 1963: the buildings locked in a… Continue reading High in the Sky, Where the Money Stacks Up

Art on the Mart by Valerio Dewalt Train Associates and Obscura Digital

Nov. 7, 2018 Ι Architectural Record The silvery, room-sized box peeking out from the Chicago Riverwalk’s limestone balustrade is perhaps the least obvious and scrutinized part of this new spine of green space, which is changing how the city considers its other great waterfront. As the projection room for a video-art installation beaming images onto the… Continue reading Art on the Mart by Valerio Dewalt Train Associates and Obscura Digital

Experimental City: The Sci-Fi Utopia That Never Was

Oct. 17, 2017 Ι CityLab To forestall the continuing growth of cities as “cancerous organisms,” the Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) was conceived in the mid-1960s by epochal technologist Athelstan Spilhaus. A modular settlement of 250,000 people or more, the city was to be powered by clean energy and run on public transit. Experimental City would be… Continue reading Experimental City: The Sci-Fi Utopia That Never Was