.,.. Are We Dead Yet John Ronan Perth Amboy John Ronan - Post Office of the Dead Doug Garofalo MCA St. Boniface Competition Carol Ross Barney Oklahoma City Rem Koolhaas confronts Mies van der Rohe on the IIT campus Frank Gehry and Millennium Park Rem Koolhaas Seattle Public Library Helmut Jahn at IIT, State Street Village Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House is saved Glenn Murcutt Chicago Architectural Events Calendar It's not easy being Green - the AIA Green House Rem Koolhaas roars back with his new book, Content Out of the Box, an exhibition on pre-fab housing, at Chicago's Field Museum

Lynn Becker's writings on architecture have appeared in the Chicago Reader, the Harvard Design Magazine, Long Island Newsday, Metropolis Magazine, and on his daily blog. He has appeared on WTTW's Chicago Tonight, and on radio on Edward Lifson's Hello, Beautiful on WBEZ, and Milt Rosenberg's Extension 720 on WGN radio, and lectured at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Arts Club of Chicago. He is available, and often actually coherent, for talks, as well as tours of Chicago architecture: personal, group or corporate. Please inquire here.

Monday, November 17th

6:00 P.M. - Cecil Balmond: Solid Void - Exhibition walkthrough with Eric Elligensen and Sarah Herda - at the Graham Foundation

Tuesday, November 18th

12:15 - 10:00 P.M. - Chicago Community Development Commission - monthly meeting

5:30 - 8:30 P.M. - P8 Portfolio Review - AIA Chicago event at Lightology/font>

6:00 - 8:00 P.M. - Sustainability and Interior Design: Basic Strategies for Improving Indoor Air Quality and Reducing Waste - presentation by Rene King, at the Chicago Center for Green Technology

Wednesday, November 19th

8:30 - 10:00 A.M. - Risky Business IV: Keys to a Successful A/E Practicee - Aia Chicago event

12:15 - 1:00 P.M. - Preservation in Chicago: Massive Challenges - lunchtime lecture by Vincent Michael, at the Chicago Architecture Foundation

6:00 P.M. - Taryn Christoff and Martin Finio: No Ideas but in Things lecture at Crown Hall, IIT

6:30 P.M. - Daniel Burnham's and Edward Bennett's Plan of Chicago and Grant Park: 100 years late Grant Park Advisory Council panel, at the Spertus Museum

Thursday, November 20th

12:00 - 1:00 P.M. - New Developments in Permeable Pavers - AIa Chicago event, at CBA

12:15 - 1:00 P.M. - The First Gold Coast - From Riches to Rags and Back Again - Landmarks Illinois Preservation Snapshots lecture by William Tyre, at the Chicago Cultural Center

6:00 -7:00 P.M. - Design Exposed: Ross Barney Architects - AIA Chicago event

6:00 - 10:00 P.M. - CTBUH 2008 7th Annual Awards Dinner - at crown Hall

6:00 P.M., welcome reception - 7:30 P.M., get aquainted dinner - Urban Waterfronts 26th Annual Conference 2008 - opening evening of three-day conference

Friday, November 21st

7:30 A.M. - 7:30 P.M. - Urban Waterfronts 26th Annual Conference 2008 - second day of three-day conference

Saturday, November 22nd

1:00 - 3:00 P.M. - Building a Solar Home from the Ground Up - presentation at the Chicago Center for Green Technology

8:00 A.M. - 12:30 P.M. - Urban Waterfronts 26th Annual Conference 2008 - closing day of three-day conference



Exhibitions

Panorama of Modern Brazilian Architecture

Chicago's Carbide and Carbon Building: The Lost Blueprints
Chicago Carbide and Carbon Building, the Lost Blueprints, exhibition at the ArchiTech Gallery
- at the ArchiTech Gallery, through November 29th.

Cecil Balmond: Solid Void
Solid Void, an exhibition created by Cecil Balmond, at the Graham Foundation, Chicago, through January 14, 2009
- at the Graham Foundation, through February 14, 2009.

Smart Home: Green + Wired
Smart Home: Green + Wired, at the Museum of Science and Industry through January 4th, 2009
at the Museum of Science and Industry, through January 4th, 2009.

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Lola Lulu Chicago
Lola Montes, a film by Max Ophuls, at Chicago's Music Box Theater, and Lulu, by Alban Berg, at Lyric Opera of Chicago Laaaaadies! - and - Gentlemen!

In this corner! . . . representing the North side, child of Ireland, lover of students, composers and kings, dancer, actress, aerialist, Protestant apologist, the Countess of Landsfield and Queen of the Mammoth Circus: Max Ophüls' Lola Montes!

And in this corner! . . . representing the West side, seed of Frank Wedekind's fevered imagination, nutured by Mahler and Schoenberg, beloved of composers, painters, countesses and high school gymnasts, murderess of newspaper editors, victim of Jack the ripper: Alban Berg's Lulu!

THIS WEEK ONLY! you have the amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity to spend quality time with not merely one, but two of the most legendary femme fatales in the history of the dramatic arts! Scandal! Perversity! Murder! Redemption! Restoration! Read all about it - with Pictures! - here.

Oh, the Humanities! - Pran, Mau, Jacob, Allen, Landscape, Bridges and SuperTalls - over 50 events on November calendar
November, 2008 calendar of Chicago architectural events [November 3, 2008] - Big Thinkers (patent pending) is one of the key themes of this year's Chicago Humanities Festival, and it's resulted in a series of programs to "celebrate architects, designers, and Big Thinkers (patent pending) throughout history and into the 21st century."

We wrote yesterday about this past weekend's programs, but if you missed them, there are several more next weekend. Among them are Offshoring Audacity, and the opening on a new exhibition, Burnham 2.0, at the Chicago History Museum, both on Saturday, and on Sunday, Bruce Mau and Elva Rubio's The Chicago Project.

It's just part of a rich array of 50+ different programs on the November calendar that will also include a three-day conference, The Second Wave of Modernism in Landscape Design in America, Structural Engineers Association of Illinois' Evolution of Bridge Technology, and the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's annual wards dinner. Friends of Downtown sponsors a look at the redevelopment of the Old Post Office with an expressway running through it, closed and empty since 1996. Carolyn Armenta Davis discusses 21st Century Designs from Black Diaspora Architects at CAF, which is also sponsoring tours of the Goettsch Partners and SOM offices on separate dates.

AIA/Chicago offers a tour of Carol Ross Barney's office. There's a walking tour of the Cecil Balmond Graham Foundation exhibition, Solid Void, by IIT's Eric Ellingsen and Director/Curator Sarah Herda. There are lectures by Vince Michael on preservation in China at CAF, William Tyre on Prairie Avenue at the Cultural Center for Landmarks Illinois, Peter Pran and Christoff and Finio at IIT, and Stan Allen, Interloop Architecture's Finley and Wamble, and Realtities: United's Jan and Tim Edler at UIC, and much, much more, including the last chance this Friday to be dazed and confused by my gallery talk for the exhibition, Boom Towns!, at CAF.

With the economy continuing to tank, you have to wonder if all these institutions will be able to continue their programs at the current pace, so gather ye rosebuds while ye may, and check the more than half a hundred great November events here.

Spirit of the Bee Hive/Chicago Style: Ornament Removed from Building attributed to Adler and Sullivan
Band of ornament at roof life, former Morgenthau Bauland and Company Building, Chicago
An architectural mystery story

The ornament on the 1884 building is gone. Where did it go, who did it, what was it like, and what's the history behind the structure on Chicago's State Street that bore the hand of the great designer Louis Sullivan? Read all about it - and see all the pictures - here.

(No Louis was harmed in the course of this production)

Uncle Sam: State Street Slumlord
Century Building, 202 S. State Street, Chicago, 1916, Holabird and Roche, architects I know times are tough, but this is ridiculous. Who would have thought the Federal government would be channeling the spirit of Lou Wolf to become the blightmasters of State Street?

Read the sad story of the GSA's neglect of Holabird and Roche's once proud 1916 Century Building, 202 S. State Street - and see all the pictures - here.

Burnham Plan-amania!: Architecture Lost? Burnham Plan Centennial
A Thursday morning press conference in Aurora unveils details of the ambitious plans for celebrating the 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham's landmark 1909 Plan of Chicago. Will architecture wind up an also-ran?

Zaha and Ben, CAF and the Newberry, John Bryan and George Ranney, Uncle Dan and Mayor Richard - read about the cast of characters and what they've got planned, ponder some questions, and see the pictures . . . here.

Shanghai, Abu Dhabi, Sobek, Baker, Beman, Florian, CNU, Iannelli and more - over 60 architectural events on October Calendar

October 2008 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events I must be sick. It's not even Halloween, and we're already posting October's calendar of architectural events. We promise to try to get back into our usual sloppy routine next month.

So what do you get in October? I have just one word for you: polycarbonate (it's all around you, you know.) Plus, there's Solon S. Beman and Christian Science, Werner Sobek and SOM's William Baker at IIT, Preston Scott Cohen and Paul Florian at UIC, CNU Illinois' 2008 conference, Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern, Shanghai Transforming, a new exhibition at CAF, Alfonso Iannelli, a Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill Architecture office tour, and a review of recently designated or proposed Chicago landmark. There are over 60 architectural events on the October calendar. Check it all out here.

Join me next Tuesday, September 23rd for Boom Towns!

Late last year, curator Greg Dreicer approached me about curating an exhibition at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. After failing to convince him, over several encounters, that this was a very bad idea, I agreed to do in less than six months what I've since learned is usually done over several years: an ambitious exhibition attempting to define the place of Chicago architects in the world today.

Well, it's Show Time! Boom Towns! Chicago Architects Design New Worlds, designed by Jason Pickleman, one of Chicago's hottest young talents, opens next Tuesday, September 23rd, with a reception at the CAF, 224 South Michigan, from 5:30 to 7:30 P.M. You're all invited, dear readers, and I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time.

I long ago lost all objectivity about this project, but I think the concept Greg and I finally arrived at was a strong one. We compare Chicago architects' signature projects - those that were clearly intended to stand out and define a certain type of building - in a series of pairings from two divergent locales and eras: the boom town of late 19th century Chicago and today's boom towns in Asia and the Middle East. In the 1890's, Chicago architects did most of their best work in their home city, and the result is one of the richest architectural legacies to be found anywhere. Today's Chicago architects must compete on a world stage, and their ambitious projects are as liable, probably more liable, to be built in Shanghai or Dubai or Hyderabad than here.

And so we have, for example, Solon Bemen's largely forgotten 1890 Grand Central Station, pictured to the left in the banner at the top of this article, paired with Murphy/Jahn's spectacular Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, shown to the right. Another coupling contrasts Daniel Burnham's plan for Manila, in America's then newly acquired territory of the Phillipines, with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's eco-plan for Chongming Island, the world's largest alluvial island, just outside of Shanghai.

William LeBaron Jenney's Home Insurance building, often cited as the world's first true skyscraper, is paired with SOM's Burj Dubai, now the world's tallest building, and Ross Wimer's twisting Infinity Tower in Dubai. Louis Sullivan's 1893 Stock Exchange Building matches up with Goettsch Partner's new stock exchange complex on Sowwah Island in Abu Dhabi.

1890's legendary Mecca Flats, on a site now occupied by Mies van der Rohe's Crown Hall on the IIT campus, is contrasted with Studio/Gang's spectacular residential tower in Hyderabad, India. The company town of Pullman, on Chicago's far south side, finds its modern counterpart in a very different kind of company town, Abu Dhabi's Masdar City, where Smith+Gill Architects' hugely innovative Masdar Headquarters is a city-within-a-city that is designed to produce more energy than it consumes.

And Burnham and Root's 1892 Masonic Temple, at the time of its construction the world's tallest building and including what was perhaps the world's first vertical shopping mall, is compared to Xintiandi, Ben Wood's highly influential project that uses traditional Chinese architecture to create an innovative lifestyle center that is one of the most popular attractions in Shanghai.

These are all the spectacular projects. If it turns out we sometimes fail to do themfull justice, blame me, because everyone at CAF, from curator Greg Dreicer, to Mike Hollander who assembled the images (a herculean task, believe me), editor Katherine Keleman, program directors Barbara Gordon and Whitney Moeller, CAF President Lynn Osmond and the entire staff and, of course, the aforementioned Mr. Pickleman, have done an amazing job getting this exhibition into shape on an extremely tight deadline, and the participating architects have all been extremely generous with their resources and time.

I'll be writing more about this project later, including a photo-essay on Pullman asit survives today, but it's now in your hands. Join me next Tuesday evening at CAF and you get to critique my work. But, as Deborah Kerr once said, "When you talk about this in the future, and you will talk about it, please be kind. . . " It's my first time.

Boom Towns! Chicago Architects Design New Worlds opens Tuesday, September 23rd, 5:30 to 7:30 P.M., at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 South Michigan. The exhibition runs through November 21st.

It's the 8th of the Month: Time for the September Calendar of Architectural Events! September, 2008 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events
Yeah, I know, we're late. Apologies to the folks at Pecha Kucha at not getting up the September calendar up in time to promote what was undoubtedly another fine outing.

We still don't have absolutely everything in, but there are already over three dozen September events: Peter Eisenman at UIC, UIC's Robert Somol talking on Whatever at IIT, traditionalists massing at Navy Pier for a three day conference and exhibition, Landmarks Illinois's new President Jim Peters discussing the Chicagoland watch list, Thomas Corning on the construction of the 24 story addition rising above the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building, Rico Cedro and Gunny Harboe discussing the rehab of Mies van der Rohe's landmark 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Thomas Vietzke and Jens Borstelmann talking about Zaha Hadid's Nordpark, a panel on Communist Avant-Garde architecture at CAF, Jose Oubrerie and Sanford Kwinter in separate lectures at UIC, a gallery talk by yours truly on CAF's new exhibition Boom Towns! contrasting signature projects in 19th Century and 21st century Asia and the Middle East, , Rolf Achilles lecturing on 19th Century furniture at Glessner House, Preservation Chicago's big benefit at the Marmon Grand in the Motor Row Historic District, DLK's Diane Legge Kemp discussing planning in China's rust belt and much, much more.

See all the events here.

This is your underpass.
This is your underpass on LSD


Bricolage mosaic, Bryn Mawr underpass, Lake Shore Drive, Chicago Underpasses stink. And I'm not sure I really want to know what that smell is. Is there a more destructive - and more ignored -bit of urban infrastructure?

Chicago's Edgewater community chose to confront and defeat the blight with a pair of spectacular bricolage mosaics along the walls of the Bryn Mawr underpass. Read all about it, and see all the pictures, here.

Dead Mall Walking
Chicago Place mall, North Michigan Avenue
The ghost mall on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. Read all about it and see the pictures here.


A Chicago Glorious Fourth A Chicago Fourth, Wrigley Building flag
Fireworks, Grant Park, Chicago, July 3, 2008

A photoessay on a Chicago Glorious Fourth - a 2008 fourth, in point of fact - in flags and buildings and in the sky. See it all here.

Palmer House Facade Looking Good - interior, not so much Palmer House, Chicago, restored State Street storefronts
A photoessay on upgrades, restorations and misfires at Chicago's classic 1920's hotel. Read and see it all here.


Casting Piano's Nichols Across the Road Nichols Bridgeway, Chicago, Renzo Piano, architect

As a serial seducer lurks nearby, Renzo Piano's Nichols Bridgeway, which will join the Art Institute of Chicago to Millennium Park, crosses a major hurdle. See all the pictures here.

Six Reasons why the Chicago Children's Museum Doesn't Belong at Daley Bicentennial Plaza in Grant Park

As consideration of the Chicago Children's Museum move to Grant Park by the Chicago Plan Commission nears on Thursday, a summary exploration of why it's a bad idea. Read all about it here.

An Alternative View: In Support of the Chicago Children's Museum in Grant Park

Why Jack thinks it's a very good idea. Read all about it here.

Chicago Children's Museum - Spaghetti Bowl East? Spaghetti Bowl, Circle Interchange, Chicago proposed Chicago Children's Museum, Grant Park, Chicago, Krueck and Sexton, architects

Every time the Chicago Children's Museum issues a new design intended to demonstrate how the project is responding to critics and getting better and better, the thing winds up only looking worse and worse. Read all about the current rampapalooza - and see the pictures - here.

Staggered Truss: Not as Painful as it Sounds Staybridge Suites, Chicago, Valerio Dewalt Train, architects The American Institute of Steel Construction brings an innovative new engineering technique to Chicago. Valerio Dewalt Train sexes it up. Read all about it, and see what the thing will look like when it's finished, plus other pictures, here.

Jagged Icebergs and Open Pit - the Brutalist Design the Chicago Children's Museums seeks to force into Grant Park. proposed Chicago Children's Museum, Grant Park, Chicago, Krueck and Sexton, architects
Renderings the Chicago Children's Museum doesn't want you to see reveal the scarring intrusiveness of the structures it wants to build in Grant Park. See them, and read a critique of Krueck and Sexton's design, here.

Skyline Brides
Skyline Brides, Wedding photos against Chicago's iconic architecture
So here's a little relief from the hot and heavy coverage on the Chicago Children's Museum's increasingly corrupt campaign to grab land in Grant Park.

How many couples have found Chicago's lake and architecture to be the perfect backdrop for celebrating the most important day of their life? Click on the link to see just a few we've stumbled across over the last few years. The link . . . here

Chicago: World's Greenest City - at least on St. Patrick's Day
bottles of Green River in Chicago on St. Patrick's Day
Trump Tower along a Chicago River dyed green for St. Patrick's Day, 2008
So is St. Patrick's Day really an obsession in Chicago, you ask. Is the Pope Irish? Well, what about the mayor, then? Once again, here's our annual anthropological exploration of Chicago's strange and wonderful St. Patrick's Day rituals, like dyeing its river a day-glo green, with lots of stunning pictures, including the larger version of the above thumbnail of Trump Tower's emerald carpet - here.


Iannelli - and Wright - Out of the Storeroom

An associate of mine where I work was cleaning out our storage rooms Alfonso Iannelli, Los Angeles Orphem Theater Poster, George Whiting and Sadie Burtwhen he came across the distinctive artwork you see here. Looking it over, we were struck by the name on the stylized signature, "Iannelli", with three dots over the "i", and I immediately thought of Alfonso Iannelli, the sculptor who collaborated with Frank Lloyd Wright at Midway Gardens. Read all about the beautiful posters Iannelli created for the Los Angeles Orpheum between 1911 and 1915, and about his contentious collaboration with Frank Lloyd Wright on Midway Gardens here. And a bit of Sally Rand and a lot about sprites, too.

The Surreal Thing
The Legacy at Millennium Park, Chicago
Even as it celebrates the 40th anniversary of the city's landmarks ordinance, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks not only continues to leave many of Chicago's most essential buildings unprotected, it's upending the very definition of what a landmark building is. Read all about it, and see all the photo's, here. (originally published, in somewhat different and much better edited form, in the February 21, 2008 Chicago Reader, under the title, Losing our Landmarks.)

The Unprotected
Germania Club, Chicago
Oops, they did it again. As the Commission on Chicago Landmarks lands the smaller fish, many of the city's most essential and historically important buildings remain unprotected. Will the 1886 Germania Club and 1929 Daily News Building and plaza become the latest victims of its neglect? Read all about it and see the pictures here. (originally published, in somewhat different and much better edited form, in the February 21, 2008 Chicago Reader, under the title, Losing our Landmarks.)


What's Wrong/Right with this Picture?
Steven Holl's Linked Hybrid in Beijing

Linked Hybrid, Steven Holl Architects, photograph,
[February 20, 2008] - An accident of timing and light suggests a strange, unsettling mutation of modernism. Read all about it, and see the images and video, here.

250,000 LEGO's Can't be Wrong: Really BIG Shew at the Graham
Scala Tower, The BIG CPH Experiment, Seven New Architectural Species from the Danish Welfare State, exhibition at the Graham Foundation
New Graham Foundation Director Sarah Herda's first exhibition, The BIG CPH Experiment, Seven New Architectural Species from the Danish Welfare State, is a winner. You only have until March 1st to see it, but you still shouldn't miss it. Read - and see - all about what makes it so special here.

Get My Drift?
Get My Drift?  The Chicago cityscape sedated under a scrim of snow
A photoessay on how a rare scrim of snow sedates the Chicago cityscape, plus a meditation on the nature and joys of slush. Read and see it all here.

The Chicago Spire: You loved the building, now buy the soundtrack

Chicago Spire, Santiago Calatrava, architect

What do the Song of the Dwarves and Santiago Calatrava's 2,000-foot-high tower have in common? Read all about it, and how you can now be among the elect group of people (1,200 in all) owning a home in the world's tallest residential building - and see lots more pictures - here.

Endgame for one of Chicago's Great Public Places?
. Chicago Daily News Building, Holabird and Roche, architects

The Chicago Daily News Building, Holabird and Root's elegant Art Deco skyscraper from 1929, was the first building constructed over railroad air rights. With its broad graceful plaza, it was the first project not to turn its back on the Chicago River, but to embrace it. Now the Daily News Building is threatened with being cast in the shadows, and its great plaza destroyed, by a new office tower reportedly being considered by billionaire developer Sam Zell. Read all about the building's history, endangered present, and future potential, here.

Marina City Curdles; Landmarks Commission Piddles
Marina City, IBM Building, Chicago

Nothing says Marina City better than rows of garage doors and bricked up facades.

No?

Well, that's exactly what LaSalle Hotel Properties had in mind for its newest Marina City tenant, Dick's Last Resort. Read about the trashing of architect Bertrand Goldberg's masterpiece, the exchange of letters between the condo association and the developer, and the silence of a Chicago Landmarks Commission that seems more comfortable making lists of nice neighborhood firehouses than protecting the iconic buildings that have made Chicago architecture known and admired throughout the world here.

Christmas in Chicago, 2007 edition

Art Institute of Chicago, Christmas in Chicago, 2007 edition
It's time for this year's photo essay on Chicago gussying itself up for the holidays. See all the pictures of old friends and new here.
Warning: includes some arboreal nudity.

Pedro E. Guerrero's American Century

Looking for a great last-minute Christmas gift? Check out Pedro E. Guerrero's A Photographer's Journey, which combines his strikingly Pedro E. Guerrero: A Photograher's Journey, Princeton Architectural Pressbeautiful and often iconic pictures of the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Alexander Calder and Louis Nevelson, among others, with a memoir that provides both the stories behind the shots and the poignant saga of the trials and triumphs of his Mexican-American immigrant family.

It's a book that's continued to linger in my mind since I first read it this past spring. You can read about Guerrero's quietly epic story, and see a few of the photographs, here.

[December 3, 2007] Devout Catholic though he may have been, I've never really equated the great Catalan architect with Father Christmas, but over the last few years he's become a holiday staple on the December calendar as the Gene Siskel Film Center, for the third year, is showing Woman of the Dunes director Hiroshi Teshigahara's 1985 documentary, Antonio Gaudi, the week before Christmas.

Nouvel Khan, Tatlin garnish

As a Chicagoan born and bred, it's impossible to look at Jean Nouvel's stunning new 53 West 53rd, a 75-story hotel/condo tower to be erected next to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, without thinking of its early precedents: the diagonal-braced tube skyscrapers of the great engineer Fazlur Khan, most especially the iconic John Hancock Building on North Michigan avenue, designed at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in collaboration with architect Bruce Graham.

Separated by four decades, the two towers offer up cogent and contrasting expressions of their respective era's. Read all about it, and see the pictures, here.

The Age of Bilbao, Ten Years Out


ArchitectureChicagoPlus correspondent, architect Iker Gil, reminds us that today is the ten year anniversary of one of the most pivotal dates in architectural history: the October 19th, 1997 opening of Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It was the day "The Bilbao Effect" drove the final spike through the heart of Post-Modernism, and the age of the Techno-Baroque was born. Read all about it - and see the photo-essay - here.

A Forest Departs - Tree by Tree
Deconstructing the AMA Park
At a deconstructing park, Big John scoops 'em up and sends them on their way. See the photo-essay and read all about it here. [POSTSCRIPT - read Harold Henderson's report on the trees journey and replantation in Humboldt park, from the Chicago Reader here.]

Chicago's Children Museum "fundamentally misconceived" - Blair Kamin
The Chicago Tribune's architecture critic analyzes why forcing a new home for the Chicago Children's museum into Grant Park is a really bad idea. Read all about it, plus check out - and perhaps join - a spirited reader exchange on the topic here.

A Landmark Event: The Art Institute of Chicago Brings Marion Mahony Griffin's The Magic of America to the Web
The Magic of America, by Marion Mahony Griffin, a new website from the Art Institute of Chicago
Nearing the end of her long life, Marion Mahony (1871-1961) finished her magnum opus The Magic of America as a loving tribute to the life and work of her late husband, architect Walter Burley Griffin. What emerges from its pages, however, is nothing less than a vivid portrait of an era, spread across two continents, America and Australia, a highly personal account of the birth both of modern American architecture and urban planning, and - by reflection and inference as much as directly - of Mahony Griffin herself, one of the most remarkable and enigmatic figures in American architecture.

Read all about it - and see the pictures - here.

Calatrava's Chicago Spire Looking for Persons of Interest
Look, but you can't buy - at least not yet, but you can see the ad on a finer bus shelter near you. Santiago Calatrava's design for the Chicago Spire continues to evolve. Read all about it and see the pictures here.
Chicago Spire, Santiago Calatrava, architect, bus shelter ad
Plus - a bonus pop quiz. What do Marina City and the Chicago Spire have in common? (Hint: think giant phallus hats) The answer revealed here.

Really Bad Photos of the Renderings the Chicago Children's Museum Doesn't Want You to See
Why is the CCM so intent on hiding its proposed building? See the photos here.

A Portrait of Mayor Daley's "Nowhere"
Here is a photograph of "nowhere":
Daley Bicentennial Park at end of Frank Gehry BP Bridge, Grant Park, Chicago

That's what Mayor Richard M. Daley derisively calls Grant Park at Daley Bicentennial Plaza, at the east end of the Frank Gehry designed BP Bridge, in still another ploy in his increasingly desperate campaign to muscle a 100,000-square-foot building for the Chicago Children's Museum into that same park. See a photo-essay on the park Daley seeks to destroy here.

Mayor Daley Rants and Rages; the Battle over Grant Park and the Chicago Children's Museum Explodes onto city's Front Pages and News Broadcasts

Who knew? When I wrote my article that appeared in the Chicago Reader last week (and also below) about the clout-heavy, and increasingly under-handed campaign by the Chicago Children's Museum in support of its land grab in Grant Park, I didn't really expect the issue would only days later become one of the biggest battles this city has seen in years.

On Monday, Mayor Richard M. Daley pre-empted 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly's announcement of his opposition to the museum's 100,000-square-foot building with an inflammatory rant villfying Reilly and charging opponents with being everything from child-haters to racists.

From my blog, here's a blow-by-blow guide to the conflict, with links to articles by mainstream media within the stories.

NEW TODAY [Saturday, September 22nd, 12:00 A.M.] The World Class Chicago's Children's Museum: We're Number 31! - "World Class Institution?" - Chicago Sun-Times and Parents Magazine beg to differ.

[Friday, September 21st, 12:00 A.M.] Gigi Pritzker crawls into Richard M. Daley's gutter - if it's not really all about race, why can't the Chicago Children's Museum Board President stop talking about it?

Tuesday, September 18th, 9:00 P.M.] Why is the Chicago Children's Museum Withholding Renderings of its New Building? - what is the CCM hiding?

[Tuesday, September 18th, 6:00 P.M.] Daley the Demagogue

[Tuesday, September 18th, 5:00 P.M.] Alderman Brendan Reilly's statement on the Chicago's Children Museum

[Tuesday, September 18th, 11:00 A.M.] Reilly opposes Museum, risks ruin. Daley diverts discussion and grabs headlines with the Big Lie

also, New Eastside Association of Neighbors' Richard F. Ward's web forum posting here.

. . . and this is where we first came in:

Forever Open Clear and Free (except when it comes to me)
Chicago Children's Museum, Krueck and Sexton, architects
[September 17, 2007] The Chicago Children's Museum wants to build a new 100,000-square-foot home in the same Grant Park where, a century ago, A. Montgomery Ward fought a long, bruising, and ultimately successful battle to enforce a 1836 mandate that Chicago’s lakefront public ground be kept “a common to remain forever open, clear and free of any buildings, or other obstruction whatever.”
Daley Bicentennial Plaza Park
They're flexing their clout and reviving the playbook of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley's vaunted political machine to make sure nothing gets in their way, but community groups and open space activists aren't co-operating.

Read a blow-by-blow account of the battle over the new building, complete with renderings and photos, here.

A Honest Critic's Credo - from a Surprising Source
Who would perpetrate such a thing? We unmask the mystery culprit - and reveal his picture - here.

Sixteen Short Pieces on A City Neighborhood
A walk through the pleasures and pains that form the texture of Chicago's Logan Square. Read all about it, and see all the photos, here. [originally published, in much better-edited form, and with far more professional photographs, in the Chicago Reader, August 10, 2007, under the title, Between the Boulevards.]
Sixteen Short Pieces on a City Neighborhood - Logan Square, Chicago

It's Official - Calatrava's Chicago Spire Hole in the GroundChicago Spire, Santiago Calatrava, Architect
So far, he's been true to his word. Garrett Kelleher, the Gatsby-like developer behind the $2 billion Chicago Spire, a project he's launching without a single pre-sale, had said he expected to get architect Santiago Calatrava's twisting, 150-story tower into the ground quickly, and if its not quite the spring launch he predicted before the Chicago Plan Commission last April, it's close. See a photo essay on the early stirrings on the site here.

The Road to Widgitdom Reader Building, Chicago
How can it be an alternative newspaper if every city's looks pretty much the same? Here's more on the sale of The Reader, the Chicago alternative weekly that gave me my writing career. If the Village Voice can be run out of Phoenix, why can't the Chicago Reader be run out of Tampa? Read all about it here.

Toy Futures, plus Lego Sins of My Youth

Are Lego's mightier than the bulldozer? ArtAsiaPacific magazine and the People's Architecture Foundation have handed each of a selected group of Asia's leading architects a white-bricks-only Lego set (who selected the pieces - Richard Meier?) with which to create models intended to be "exhibited and auctioned to raise awareness about architectural preservation in Asia . . . The project engages concepts of creativity through play and issues of urbanism, new design and heritage awareness that affect architects in a region undergoing dramatic change and development. " See some of the models and read all about it, here. And while your at it, you can check out my own Lego juvenilia here, and leave your caustic and derisive comments here. I can take it . . . I think.

Theater Historian Joseph DuciBella Dies
Restoration designer and architectural historian Joseph DuciBella dies at 62[July 1, 2007] Restoration designer and architecture historian Joseph DuciBella, ASID, died last Friday, June 29th at the age of 62, after a prolonged battle with cancer. Read about his achievements, and see photos of some of his work, here.

When Too Much is Just RightWashtenaw and Logan house
[June 19, 2007] A colorful interloper knocks the top hats off the stuffed shirts of Logan Boulevard. Read all about it, and see the photos here.



Major Jenney Garners a Salute

[June 6, 2007] On June 15th, 1907, William Le Baron Jenney suffered twin indignities. The first, he found himself inWilliam Le Baron Jenney Los Angeles, the second, he died. He has remained dead now, give or take a week or so, for one hundred years.

Celebrating the anniversary of someone's death is something you'd think you'd wish only on an enemy, but we're always looking for any excuse for a good party. If a birthday Home Insurance Building, William Le Baron Jenney, architectisn't available in a large round number, a death can be made to make do.

So over the next few weeks, we're saying a big, "Here's to you, WLJ," with a series of events that commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jenney's passing, including a Saturday symposium at the Chicago History Museum, the dedication of a new Jenney monument at Graceland Cemetery, and a series of lectures at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

Jenney's major claim to fame is as "The Father of the Skyscraper." Leroy Buffington may have been the first to patent the idea of a metal-frame building, but Jenney was the one who got it done, in the 1884 Home Insurance Building. Read all about Jenney - and see the pictures - here.

Sao Paulo goes Martin Luther
on Signage's Ass
[May 16, 2007]
Sao Paulo bans signage

Imagine there's no neon
It's easy if you try . . .

Pope Benedict's current roadshow invocations against the Fleurs de Mal notwithstanding, it's hard to imagine Brazilians giving up sex, but perhaps even more difficult to imagine them giving up advertising - read all about it and see the pictures here.


The New Spertus Lightens Up (Genesis 1-3)
Spertus Institute, Krueck and Sexton architects

[April 26, 2007] Photos (lots) and quotes from a press preview of Krueck and Sexton's spectacular new Spertus Institute, which brings Chicago's Michigan Avenue historic district into the 21st Century. Read and see all about it here.

1924 Lake Shore Athletic Club Being Railroaded to Extinction? Lake Shore Athletic Club

[April 12, 2007] Chicago's preservation bureaucracy appears well on the way to greasing the skids for the demolition of the elegant 1924 Lake Shore Athletic Club, designed by architect Jarvis Hunt. Its classically inspired facade fronts a richly ornamented interior, including a handsome marble staircase, two-story foyer, and carved marble fireplace. See more pictures, and read about the building and the 11th-hour efforts to save it, here.

Myron Goldsmith, Quiet Poet of American Architecture

Kitt Peak National Observatory, Myron Goldsmith, architect

[April 9, 2007] You have only five more days to see an exhibition at the Arts Club of Chicago of the often astonishing work of master architect Myron Goldsmith. Read all about it and see the pictures here.

The Architecture of Dreams and Waking
Uptown Chicago

Uptown built as if it were going to conquer Chicago, but spent most of the following century battling a hangover. Today, it remains the place where florid ambition and cold reality collide. Read all about it, and see the pictures here.

Santiago Explains it all for you
Chicago Spire, Santiago Calatrava, architect
Chicago is now officially in the throes of Spire-mania. Over 500 people packed two separate meetings on Tuesday to see and hear developer Garrett Kelleher and architect Santiago Calatrava present what may Santiago Calatrava watercolor of Chicago Spireactually be moving towards the final design for the Chicago Spire, their 2,000 foot high tower to be built on a derelict peninsula between the Chicago River, Ogden slip, and Lake Michigan.

There'll be a much more to come after we finish transcribing, including a full account of the proposals, prospects and designs for the long-unrealized DuSable Park, just east of the Spire, but for now, read our account on how Calatrava sat down next to an overhead projector, picked up a brush, and began creating watercolors to explain his concepts. ""Just working as I work in my office," Calatrava said, "bringing you into my office, and sitting you across from me and showing you how I would approach a thing like that, such an important thing, (through) a balance of very simple gestures."

Read all about it, and see a sampling of the images to come, here.

AIA Illinois Finally gets that whole"Best of" list thing right
AIA Illinois 150 Great Places
After a silly season of "best of" lists that's ranged from the American Institute of Architect's lazy and inane America's Favorite Architecture to the Illinois Bureau of Tourism's beauty contest quest for the Seven Wonders of Illinois, AIA Illinois has finally gotten it right.

With 150 Great Places in Illinois, they've finally come up with a compilation that comes off neither as a joke nor as something a PR intern tossed off between assignments. It's a great combination of usual suspects and unexpected discoveries, and it's all available on an addictive, informative and superbly designed website. Read all about it and see some of the photos here.

Studio/Gang's Aqua Begins to Flow
The Aqua at Lakeshore East, Studio/Gang, architects

[March 19, 2007] It's actually happening. Aqua, the rippling 82-story tower designed by Studio/Gang's Jeanne Gang and Mark Schendel is beginning to rise on its site at Columbus and Lake in Magellan Development's massive Lakeshore East complex.

You usually don't see all the things that go into a skyscraper laid out before you like a jigsaw puzzle ready to be assembled, but that was the case this weekend, as crews from McHugh Construction, the contractor of record for the project, were preparing for the sinking of the cassions that will support the tower. See the pictures here.

Green River Redux
Dyeing Chicago River Green for St. Patrick's Day
Coloring Easter eggs? That may be how you celebrate Spring in your wimpy burg, but this is Chicago. Stock up the speedboat with bags of Tang colored vegetable dye, dump it in the river, churn it up with the propeller and - voila (or its Gaelic equivalant) - instant St. Patrick's Day. This year, March 17th is special, because it's a Saturday, so the parade, dye-fest and over-served merriment will take place on the actual holiday.

I'm sure I'll be taking a lot more pictures, but to help get you in the mood, here's last year's photo essay on Chicago's annual rolling out of an emerald carpet for the city's architecture. (Recycling - what a concept!)

Mies van der Rohe devoured by Giant Dinosaur
Mies van der Rohe devoured by giant dinosaur

Astounding and Shocking Details Here o mention them all here, but you can check it all out here.

Endgame: Is the Fix in for the Farwell Building?

In January, to general astonishment, the Commission on Chicago Farwell BuildingLandmarks flashed a bit of backbone and voted down a Planning Department proposal to demolish the landmarked Farwell Building on north Michigan Avenue.

Well, we can't have that, can we?

A special session has been set for 9:00 A.M. on Thursday, March 8th to reverse the January vote. Read all about how power works in this city, including the developers and architects who are cutting the big checks to the local alderman promoting the Farwell's demolition here.

Young? Chicago?
Gyeonggi-do Jeongok Prehistory MuseuGyeonggi-do Jeongok Prehistory Museum, Korea, Paul
What does it mean to be a Chicago architect or designer? Are there affinities and synergies that they share, or could they just as well be working in anywhere U.S.A.? A new exhibition at Chicago's Art Institute puts the work of a sweet sixteen of architects, industrial, fashion and graphics designers on display, and the museum's new curator of Architecture and Design, Joseph Rosa, tries to make sense of the mix. Read all about it, and see the pictures, here.

Listomania
Harold L. Washington Library, Chicago

To mark its 150th anniversary, the American Institute of Architects has proclaimed 150 structures as America's Favorite Architecture. Laughter and ridicule ensue. Feel free to join the fun. I do my part here.

Urbanlab Wins City of the Future

Thursday, February 8th: It was announced this morning that Chicago firm Urbanlab has won the $10,000 first prize in the History Channel's The City of the Future Competition, for their vision of the Chicago of 2106. Urbanlab City of the FutureThe firm had already won $10,000 for winning the Chicago leg of competition, and now wins the additional $10,000 for beating out entries from similar competitions in New York and Los Angeles.

The winner was selected by the public via the City of the Future website. The award was announced by architect Daniel Libeskind, who served as "national competition juror." "UrbanLab is thrilled to have been named the National Winner of the City of the Future competition," said the firm's Martin Felsen, "especially considering the high caliber of ideas and proposals generated by the competition participants. We'd like to thank The History Channel for providing such an important forum, at a pivotal time, for an open discussion of future design directions of our cities. Read my take on the competition, and see the pictures here.

To Catch a Thief - Do You Know This Man?

Is there anything lower - and more pathetic - than a dour young man who lifts what he thinks is a valuable newel post from one of Chicago's greatest landmark buildings and walks away with it stuffed into his backpack? Below is pictured just such a man:
Monadnock Thief
Do you know who he is? And if do, could you let us know? On the afternoon of January 12th, this guy was caught on surveillance cameras walking into the 1890's Monadnock Building and nonchalantly stealing the newel post from the staircase. See all of the surveillance pictures and read the rest of the story here.

2007 Chicago Prize, Seattle Olympic Sculpture Garden's Marion Weiss at Art Institute Tonight

Beginning at 5:30 P.M. tonight, Thursday, January 25th, over 80 entries to the Chicago Architectural Club's 2007 Chicago Prize Chicago Architectural Club 2007 Chicago Prize, Crossing the Drivecompetition, Crossing the Drive, will be on display in the Louis Sullivan Trading Room on the Columbus side of the Art Institute. Beginning around 6:30, Jury Chair Marion Weiss will announce the winners and deliver a keynote lecture that will, it is hoped, touch on her firm's Olympic Sculpture Park, which just opened in Seattle to international raves. Read more about it, check out the links, and see some pictures- here.

Kamin unveils latest design for Calatrava's Chicago Spire

Less than a week after it was withheld from a packed public meeting, Santiago Calatrava's latest design for the 2,000-foot-high Chicago Spire is unveiled by Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin. Read all about it - and see the pictures - here.

Calatrava Spire Enshrouded in Irish Fog

Donald Trump step aside. Garrett Kelleher may be the most Garrett Kelleherconfident developer on the face of the earth. Monday night - January 15th - the man behind the proposed Chicago Spire, the twisting 2,000-foot-high tower from superstar architect Santiago Calatrava - flew in from Ireland to present his project to a meeting sponsored by the Grant Park Advisory Council. But in patiently – mostly - taking on questions from an overwhelmingly enthusiastic crowd that braved snow, ice and cold to pack Daley Bicentennial Plaza fieldhouse just east of Millennium Park, he raised as many questions as he answered. Read all about it - and see the pictures - here

Extreme Makeover, North Lawndale Style

Tonight's (Sunday, January 14th, 7 P.M.) installment of ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition in Chicago's North LawndaleExtreme Makeover: Home Edition goes back to the city to rehab a home in Chicago's historic North Lawndale neighborhood. Read all about it - and see the pictures here.


Proposal to demolish landmark Farwell Building suffers surprise defeat.

In a vote that appeared to shock both city planners and preservationists, a proposal to strip the facade from the landmark Farwell building, store, repair and reassemble it on a new building, was today defeated in a close vote by the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Read the update post here or read the original article on the controversy here.

Future of Landmarking in Chicago to be Decided Today?

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks will be meeting today, Thursday, January 4th beginning at 12:45 P.M. in a session open toFarwell Building, Chicago, Philip Maher, architect the pubic to be held in Cook County Commission Board Room on the 5th floor at 118 North Clark. In deciding the fate of The Farwell Building, an officially designated landmark, it will be setting a precedent that could open the door for a wave of demolitions of current landmarks. Read the update here, and a spirited discussion of the issue here. Or read the original story described below here.

Is landmarks preservation in Chicago going the way of the dinosaur? We may only be starting to get a handle on 2007, but already the Commission on Chicago Landmarks is scheduled to take a Thursday vote that stands to reverse the results of decades of struggle, and leave all but a handful of Chicago's finest buildings open to demolition.

Do I exaggerate? I wish that I were. Please read on.

Crawling Into the Bunker

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Headquarters in Washington D.C. by Moshe Safdie and Associates ArchitectsA new headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Washington, D.C. raises questions about the message of federal architecture in a time of the war against terror. Read all about it here.

The 2006 top ten in Chicago architecture (illuminated)
2006 Top Ten in Chicago Architecture
What's with this sick compulsion to create year-end top ten lists? Can I resist? Obviously not. Read about the buildings, people and events that made the cut, and see all the pictures here.

Christmas in Chicago

Dearborn Bridgehouse, Marina City, and IBM Building in Chicago at Christmas

Universally, Christmas is a celebration of darkness over light. We may just have a more bulbs than most. See all the pictures here.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Pacific Overture

Frank's Home, a new play by Richard Nelson at Chicago's Goodman Theatre by Frank's HomeRichard Nelson starring Peter Weller and Harris Yulin captures Frank Lloyd Wright at the point between despair and resurrection. Read all about it here.



It's Not Bombed-Out Berlin - It's Our Legacy!
Wabash Avenue facades A photoessay on Chicago's latest and most spectacular facadectomy. Read and see it here.

Massive Sideshow?

Bruce Mau's Massive Change at the Museum of Contemporary ArtThe brilliant graphics designer Bruce Mau says his exhibition Massive Change is "not about the world of design; it's about the design of the world." The world may have other plans.

Massive Change and it's accompanying exhibition, Sustainable Architecture in Chicago: Works in Progress, showcasing green projects from seven top Chicago architects, are in their final weeks at the Museum of Contemporary Art. (Massive closes December 31st, Sustainable January 7th)

What's the disconnect between the wonders on display and their actual impact on our world? Is Mau's grandiose vision a roadmap to paradise or a triumph of public relations?

Read all about it - including Mau's commentary as he toured his exhibition - with lots of pictures and links, for both shows - here.

Calatrava's Latest Twist from Spire to Licorice Stick

Santiago Calatrava's Chicago Spire Architect Santiago Calatrava's towering lady is packing on some pounds. Both Crain's Chicago Business and Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin have filed reports on this week's announcement of changes to The Chicago (formerly Fordham and AKA Calatrava) Spire, the megaproject taken over earlier this year by Dublin's Shelbourne Development Corporation. Read about all the changes and the challenges to getting the project built, and see the pictures here.

Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City to be proposed for Landmark Designation today, Thursday, December 7th

At a session that begins at 11:00 A.M. this Thursday morning , Bertrand Goldberg's Marina Cityarchitect Lynette Stuhlmacher of Docomomo Midwest and Lisa DiChiera from Landmarks Illinois will recommend that Bertrand Goldberg's Marina City complex be designated an official city landmark.

One of the most important complex of buildings in Chicago's history, Marina City, known for its twin, 578-feet high "corncob" towers each that have become an icon of the city throughout the world. It has no official landmark protection, and the base of the pioneering mixed used development's hotel has recently undergone a unfortunate repainting. Read all about the battle to protect Chicago's rich modernist legacy here.

Eglise Saint-Pierre a FirminyLast Things

A half century after its design and four decades after the architect's death, Le Corbusier's Eglise Saint-Pierre à Firminy is finally completed, while legendary Chicago writer Richard Stern offers up his alternative translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's final poem. Read about them both here. (photograph: Der Spiegel) \

Phantoms

Richard Nickel's Chicago

Richard Nickel's Chicago creates an moving portrait of the city and its people at mid-century, of wonders lost, and of the photographer who gave his life trying to save them.
Richard Nickel photographed ghosts. His subjects were the remains of the “City of the Century,” whose wild growth -- from 30,000 people to over a million and a half in under 50 years -- fueled the building boom that created Chicago’s early skyscrapers, its great houses, and the fantasy world of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. But by the time Nickel began taking pictures of Chicago in the 1950s, the inner city neighborhoods that had been the city’s pride had been panic-peddled s into slums, and by the late 60's rage piled on neglect and set the streets ablaze, while in the besieged Loop, a rich architectural heritage that was admired worldwide was decimated and discarded as if it were yesterday’s garbage. Read the rest of the poignant story - and see some of the photos - here.

The Short, Brutal Life of a Parade Balloon
The Short Brutal Life of a Parade Balloon

Robocop channels Frank Lloyd Wright Frank's Home at Goodman Theatre

Peter Weller, the actor whose film work ranges from Robocop to David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, will play Frank Lloyd Wright in the Goodman Theatre production of Frank's Home, which begins previews on November 25th, with a run from December 5th through the 23rd. The play is written by Richard Nelson, whose musical adaptation of James Joyce's short story, The Dead, was an intimate Broadway triumph in 1999, and it's being directed by the legendary Robert Falls, fresh from his recent staging of King Lear with Stacy Keach. Read about it here. ph?

Friday, June 2nd - TIF's - Robin Hoods in Reverse?

Step right up, step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and guess -
THE CITY OF THE FUTURE!

City of the Future competition sponsored by The History Channel

"What will Chicago look like 100 years from now?" That's the question a competition sponsored by The History Channel is posing to eight of Chicago's top design firms, participants in the marathon, all-day event taking place this Friday, November 17th. It's at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, in the beautiful atrium of Daniel Burnham's Railway Exchange Building on Michigan Avenue, and it's open to the public. Read all about what could be a great show- and learn what architecture will really be like a century from today - here.

Postscript: UrbanLabs wins $10,000 first prize.

Aftermath

How fires, demolitions, scaffoldings, and arson investigations Heneghan Wrecking Companyhave hijacked the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Louis Sullivan's birth. Read all about it here.

 

Happy 150th Birthday Louis Sullivan - We've Burned Your Third Building This Year!

Adler and Sulivan's George M. Harvey House destroyed by fire

In January, it was the K.A.M. Pilgrim Baptist Church. Little more than a week ago, it was the 1887 Wirt Dexter Building. Today, an early morning blaze has made the George M. Harvey House the third Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan landmark to be destroyed by fire just this year. Architectural preservation in the city of Chicago has hit another new low. Does anyone here know how to play this game? Read all about it and see the sad pictures here

Slumming up Marina City

Painters at Bertrand Goldberg's Hosue of Blues Hotel at Marina City in Chicago

New management steeps the House of Blues Hotel in ugly as a part of another renovation of the former office building in architect Bertrand Goldberg's world famous Marina City complex in Chicago.Read all about it - and see the photos - here.

Massive Fire Claims Adler & Sullivan landmark

Adler & Sullivan's Wirt Dexter Building gutted by fire

A five-alarm fire Tuesday claimed the landmark Wirt Dexter building in Chicago's south Loop, one of the few surviving structures from the partnership of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler. Coupled with the loss of the firm's K.A.M. Pilgrim Baptist Church, also to fire, early this past year, it raises questions about the city's commitment to protecting its architectural legacy. Read the full story and see all the pictures here.

Chicago's Orchard Street - Urban Menace?

Chicago's Orchard Street - Urban Menance Today's Ch