Chicago

What buildings in Chicago are most endangered this year? Find out at the unveiling of the 19th annual “Chicago 7,” a list from Preservation Chicago that identifies significant structures preservationists hope to protect from the wrecking ball.

Don’t miss this special year-in-review program with Chicago Architecture Center President and CEO Lynn Osmond. Hear how local architects, planners and developers pushed ahead with key projects and initiatives during a most challenging 2020.

This year, the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA Chicago) is honoring the city’s outstanding architectural projects virtually at Designight 2020. For the first time in the event’s sixty-five year run, the organization’s Design Excellence Awards ceremony and celebration will be a free online experience for members and non-members alike.

The Chicago Architecture Center looks forward to welcoming architecture lovers from across and beyond Chicago to enjoy an expanded Open House Chicago festival this October. The second-most widely attended event of its kind in the world, returning for a tenth consecutive year, Open House Chicago 2020 highlights architecturally, culturally and historically significant sites across “the city of neighborhoods,” with an intentional focus for 2020 on the city’s South and West Sides.

OHC 2020 community partner Hyde Park Art Center co-convenes this roundtable discussion about artist-driven community activations, creative projects and placemaking across Chicago, ahead of its forthcoming 2021 exhibition, “Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden.”

October 14, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the designation of Chicago’s first two landmarks: Glessner House and Clarke House. In celebration of this milestone event, we will explore how landmarking came into being and how its use and impact have gone far beyond preservation. Chicago’s diverse Third Ward, in which the two houses are located, will be used as a case study.

Join Open House Chicago 2020 community partner the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society for this panel discussion moderated by Dio Aldridge, special assistant to the dean and provost on diversity, equity and inclusion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and virtual tour with CAC docent Mike McMains, pastor Robert Marshall and North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society chairwoman Blanche Suggs Killingsworth. Converted to a church in 1971, the Central Park Theater was reportedly the first to offer mechanical air conditioning and also marked the start of a fruitful partnership between architects Rapp and Rapp and the Balaban and Katz cinema empire, which would give rise to numerous landmarks including the Chicago, Oriental (now Nederlander), Riviera and Uptown theaters. Go virtually behind the scenes and learn more about the currently closed 1917 building which, despite its listing on the National Register of Historic Places, faces an uncertain future.

Open House Chicago 2020 community partner Preservation Chicago co-convenes this roundtable discussion about the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. After decades of disinvestment, what does Roseland need to rebuild its community health and vibrance, and how might historic preservation be leveraged as a means toward such progress? Presenters include Greater Roseland Chamber of Commerce founding executive director Andrea D. Reed, Preservation Chicago director of community engagement Mary Lu Seidel, City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development coordinating planner Erika Sellke, Roseland Heights Community Association president and Red Line Extension Coalition member Clevan Tucker, Jr. and historian, musician, photographer and lifelong Chicago resident Paul Petraitis.

Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize and IIT College of Architecture would like to invite you to join us in a book launch of Being the Mountain, published by the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture & Actar Publishers

International architecture practice Buro Ole Scheeren Group is helping re-imagine the form and function of skyscrapers around the world. Founding principal Ole Scheeren will illuminate the firm’s unique approach to every project.

Save the date and join us—from anywhere on Earth—for an entertaining virtual event to support the CAC. Listen in on a roundtable discussion between Juan Gabriel Moreno, Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, and alumni from CAC Education programs for teens.

Part of the CAC’s “What’s Next” series • Bringing people, ideas, goods and services together are hallmarks of urban life. So how are places designed with that in mind adapting to the challenges—both immediate and prolonged—of the current pandemic?

A prolific architect, trailblazing city planner, and civic and cultural leader, Daniel Burnham has been described by contemporaries and biographers as both a pragmatic realist and a visionary idealist. CAC docent Marcia Matavulj dives into this apparent contradiction by exploring Burnham’s architectural practice during Chicago’s fast-moving progression from short buildings with load-bearing walls to steel-framed skyscrapers never seen before.

This virtual tour highlights famous and lesser-known buildings in downtown Chicago designed by women architects including Studio Gang’s Aqua Tower and Vista Tower, and the International Style landmark 401 North Michigan, completed in 1965 as the Equitable Building and designed in part by Natalie Griffin de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.