September 25, 2018 Ι The Atlantic’s CityLab Public safety, the city’s pension load, and public schools were the major issues haunting Rahm Emanuel’s assumed re-election bid earlier this month, all of which were upended by his surprise announcement that he wouldn’t throw his hat into the ring for a third term. Given the power that… Continue reading After Rahm, What Comes Next for the Obama Library?
Tag: Architecture
Will the Culture of Good Taste Devour McDonald’s?
Metropolis Magazine Ι August 15, 2018 At a new corporate headquarters in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood, there’s a double-height lobby filled with green walls and massive art installations. Travel to its top floor roof deck and you’ll find a cozy fire pit next to a fitness center and bar (happy hours are on Thursday). Elsewhere, stair-seating… Continue reading Will the Culture of Good Taste Devour McDonald’s?
New Views into an Unheralded Element of Mies
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
The Brilliant Artist That Chicago, and the World, Nearly Forgot
The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι June 18, 2018 Edgar Miller was a virtuoso in any medium he chose: painting, sculpture, stained glass, architecture, interior design, printmaking, metalwork, cutlery, graphic design. He put those prodigious skills toward building a creative community on Chicago’s near-north side in the 1920s and beyond. Miller’s handful of architecture projects (a series of… Continue reading The Brilliant Artist That Chicago, and the World, Nearly Forgot
At the Venice Biennale, Jeanne Gang Uses Memphis’s Cobblestones to Reflect on Monuments and Messy Civic Histories
Metropolis Magazine Ι May 23, 2018 “How do you make the stones talk?” asks the architect Jeanne Gang. It’s not a philosophical posture, but an earnest question and one at the center of Studio Gang’s soon-to-open 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale installation at the U.S. Pavilion. The stones Gang refers to were plucked out of storage, but… Continue reading At the Venice Biennale, Jeanne Gang Uses Memphis’s Cobblestones to Reflect on Monuments and Messy Civic Histories
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
Blue Light Special: The Chicago-Area High School in an Old Kmart
CityLab Ι May 8, 2017 Belvidere Road is an unremarkable stretch of suburbia in Waukegan, Ill., north of Chicago, lined with highway-sign staples: gas stations, car washes, fast-food joints, and a low-rent motel. It was only after a previous deal to move his private high school into a converted office building fell through that Preston Kendall… Continue reading Blue Light Special: The Chicago-Area High School in an Old Kmart
The Invasive Species Exhibit Wriggles Into the Art World Using Augmented Reality
Redshift Ι April 12, 2018 Site-specific and speculating on a possible future, surreally biomorphic and also digital, artist Felice Grodin’s Terrafish installation is proudly in-betwixt and in-between. This digital model, part of the Invasive Species exhibit at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), doesn’t exist in real space: It uses augmented reality (AR) as a new… Continue reading The Invasive Species Exhibit Wriggles Into the Art World Using Augmented Reality
Interview with Yesomi Umolu
Architectural Record Ι March 19, 2018 Yesomi Umolu is interested in applying her multi-disciplinary expertise (with stops in architecture school, practice, and the elite contemporary art curatorial class) and globe-trotting personal and professional background to a biennial that speaks to an equally wide range of public audiences. “The biennial is for and of the city of… Continue reading Interview with Yesomi Umolu
Carol Ross Barney is Chicago’s New Daniel Burnham
Metropolis Magazine Ι January 2018 As a lifelong Chicagoan, Carol Ross Barney has seen the Chicago River transition from an effluent-filled cargo highway to a vibrant recreational spot, one where her grandsons go fishing. “They can throw their line in and pull out two- to three-inch fish immediately,” she says. It has even become a habitat… Continue reading Carol Ross Barney is Chicago’s New Daniel Burnham