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

Re-Shaped by Crisis, an “Anti-Biennial” Reimagines Chicago

Oct. 2, 2021 Ι Bloomberg CityLab  The 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial was held, like its two predecessors, in the Chicago Cultural Center, a sumptuous late-19th-century meeting hall in the downtown Loop. Two years later, rocked by Covid-19 and local protests against police violence, North America’s largest architecture and design show finds itself in very different surroundings.… Continue reading Re-Shaped by Crisis, an “Anti-Biennial” Reimagines Chicago

A Radical Idea in Chicago: A Biennial that Listens and Builds

Sept. 22, 2021 Ι Architectural Record  By the end of the opening weekend of the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial(CAB) on Sunday, September 19, I’d been prayed over by parishioners of the Rock of Ages Missionary Baptist Church at 13th Street and Pulaski Road, and thanked for sharing the Good News of the West Side of… Continue reading A Radical Idea in Chicago: A Biennial that Listens and Builds

Chicago Teens Unveil Vision for Change and Public Safety in Their Neighborhood

Next City Ι Sept. 23, 2020 The Chicago teens enrolled in urban design non-profit Territory’s programs usually spend their time exploring public spaces, designing prototype installations, and building them in a studio. But with this summer’s COVID-19 lockdown, the youth-focused design, public art, and community planning organization founded in 2012 had to figure out how… Continue reading Chicago Teens Unveil Vision for Change and Public Safety in Their Neighborhood

Chicago Works: Amanda Williams at the Museum of Contemporary Art

Architectural Record Ι July 21, 2017  Color(ed) Theory, a series of photographs of abandoned houses on Chicago’s South Side painted bright colors, was one of the Chicago Architecture Biennial’s most persistent viral images. Chicago Works: Amanda Williams—its sequel of sorts—constitutes a passing of the torch. The show, which opened this week at the Museum of Contemporary… Continue reading Chicago Works: Amanda Williams at the Museum of Contemporary Art