Chicago: The Latest Architecture and News

The United States Artists Fellowship Award is an annual grant that recognizes the "most compelling artists working and living in the United States, in all disciplines, at every stage of their career". Every year, individual artists are anonymously nominated to apply by a diverse group of scholars, critics, producers, and other arts professionals. Among the 63 recipients of 2022, 5 were selected from the fields of architecture and design with the aim of strengthening and enriching the industry and their communities.

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Over the past year, established practices have continued to champion the transformation of existing structures, with adaptive reuse and renovations increasingly becoming a defining aspect of contemporary architecture  From the renovation of landmark structures to the adaptive reuse of obsolete facilities, the idea of giving new life to existing buildings has been embraced as the premise for a more sustainable practice, but also as a means of reinforcing the urban and cultural identity of cities. Discover 8 designs and recently completed projects that showcase a new common practice of reusing existing building stock.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The problem with being a deliberative writer is that pretty much everything has already been penned by the time you’re ready to write about something. Such is the case with the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB): The Available City. There have been several well-written, insightful essays about the CAB by Zach Mortice, Anjulie Rao, Marianela D’Aprile, and others, so it would be foolish to travel the landscape they have so expertly traversed. Instead, I’m offering a trip through this edition of the CAB, which concluded a successful and significant run on Saturday, down a road less traveled.

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Videos

This video follows Hiba Bhatty, an architect at Valerio Dewalt Train in Chicago, through a day on the job. The daily activities of an architect can sometimes seem mysterious. This is likely due to the fact that no day is really “typical.” Designing buildings goes through multiple phases, each with very different responsibilities.

After years of ongoing demolition threats and renovation proposals, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has announced that the state has finally reached a deal to sell Helmut Jahn's iconic Thompson Center to Real Estate company The Prime Group, who will carry out renovation works without any demolitions to the structure. The newly proposed design preserves the structure's original design, but implements new features that improve its thermal and acoustic conditions, and highlights its atrium as the "jewel of the building".

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Videos

The historic lion house has long been a central element of Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. When global architecture firm Goettsch Partners (GP) set out to renovate and expand the structure, the aim was to preserve the original building while increasing the usable area and creating a new spatial experience. The facility is home to a pride of four African lions, as well as Canada lynx, red pandas and snow leopards.

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Videos

In Chicago, black or silver-colored towers designed by Mies van der Rohe are sprinkled across the city from the north to the south. They all sprang up within a relatively short period of time and constitute — in combination with some faithful homages — what’s called the Second Chicago School of Architecture. This timeline makes it seem like Mies' strategies sprang out of nowhere and like they were born already fully developed. This video takes a look at how these tower strategies evolved from smaller projects to larger ones by paying special attention to their section. Whereas open plans promise ultimate fluidity, in section, Mies' buildings present another idea entirely. In this direction, difference and discretion dominate and symmetry rules. All of this is in service of developing a close connection between the occupant and the distant horizon.

Studio Gang has revealed 63rd House, its design for Blue Tin Production's new manufacturing studio in the heart of Chicago’s southwest side. The new headquarters, which is an adaptive reuse project of Chicago's two-story brick post office that was built in 1920, will feature a mix of meeting and artist spaces around a central community room, "centralizing workers’ well-being, deepening connections with neighborhood residents and partners, and building long-term economic mobility and racial equity across the city".

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In Metropolis this week, author Annie Howard explores Chicago's Architecture Biennial, which opened to the public on September 17th, showcasing a series of 15 site-specific interventions. Arguing that "a tour of the Damen Silos and a celebration of the Wall of Respect show a biennial struggling to achieve longer-term engagement with the city it calls home", the editor questions how much work is needed in order to make the city fully usable to its residents.

On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago had roughly 200 inhabitants. Four years later, in 1837, it was upgraded to The City of Chicago – an interesting fact given that there are still 19 incorporated towns in Illinois. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 killed 300 people, destroyed about 3.3 square miles (9 km2), and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. However, by that time Chicago had become the world’s fastest-growing city and its population had risen over 300,000 inhabitants. The fire meant these ambitious citizens had to start again.

With admirable strength, the city was reborn from the ashes and some of Chicago’s best architecture was constructed immediately after. Structures like the Rookery Building (1888, Frank Lloyd Wright), the Auditorium Building (1889, Louis Sullivan) and the Monadnock Building (1893, Burnham & Root, Holabird & Roche) are a few examples of the high standards the city was aiming for.

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Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has collaborated with University of Michigan Taubman College to create the SPLAM [SPatial LAMinated timber], a robotically-fabricated timber pavilion for the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial. The pavilion employs prefabricated framing panels manufactured using robotic technology, and will serve as an open-air education facility and gathering space for a school in Chicago. The pavilion was inaugurated on September 17, with the opening of the Chicago Biennial, and will remain on display until December 18th.

The fourth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial opened to the public on September 17th, showcasing a series of 15 site-specific interventions within the urban environment that tap into ideas of shared space and collective agency, exploring “who gets to participate in the design of the city”. Led by Artistic Director David Brown, this year’s edition operating under the theme The Available City, intends to highlight the potential of vacant urban areas as collective spaces through interventions developed in close collaboration with the local community. At the same time, the event underscores the potential for “immediate new possibilities” and illustrates the significant impact of small urban gestures.

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Less than two months ago, the future of an 1894 Dutch Colonial-style home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t looking all that bright after it hit the market for $1.3 million in the Chicago suburb of Hinsdale, Illinois. As of this week, however, the historic Frederick Bagley House, described by the nonprofit Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy as a “unique and irreplaceable” early work of Wright, has found a very happy ending—or, more aptly, a new beginning.

The Chicago Architecture Center and the Chicago Architectural Club have announced the three winning designs for the 2021 Chicago Prize Competition, which called for innovative adaptive reuse proposals that would grant a new life to the iconic Illinois Thompson Center. The winning proposals designed by Perkins&Will, Eastman Lee Architects, and Solomon Cordwell Buenz represent alternative visions for the future of the Postmodernist landmark.

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