Chicago: The Latest Architecture and News

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The National Historic Landmark Auditorium Theatre, which officially opened on December 9, 1889, has been a Chicago institution for 130 years. Celebrate this milestone anniversary, and explore Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler's masterpiece, at a FREE Open House! Take a historic theatre tour, pose for a picture at a photo booth with an Auditorium Theatre-themed backdrop; sketch and take photos of the theatre; bring the kids for free popcorn and coloring; grab a drink at the bar; and enter a raffle for a chance to win free tickets to a future Auditorium Theatre performance. Photographs, program books, and posters from the theatre’s archives will also be on display.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

By and large, architectural photo books hew to a paradigm: big, glossy images of big, glossy buildings, paired with minimal text, shorn of any and all polemics. Context, in this environment, can be a distraction. Fortunately, Lee Bey’s new book, Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side (Northwestern University Press), is a notable exception to this unwritten rule. It’s an intriguing hybrid: a photo book of the South Side, a neighborhood history, a mini-memoir, and a polemic about systemic racism and historic preservation in Chicago.

The third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) has opened in Chicago with a range of new exhibitions and installations across the city. Organized under the theme ...And other such stories, the biennial showcases the work of over 80 contributors, including MASS Design Group, Forensic Architecture, Theaster Gates, and more. Taking a look at the main venue, we’re diving into some of the exhibitions and emerging stories.

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The third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB) has opened in Chicago with a range of new exhibitions and installations across the city. Organized under the theme ...And other such stories, the biennial showcases the work of over 80 contributors, including MASS Design Group, Forensic Architecture, Theaster Gates, and more. Taking a first look at the city's exhibitions, we've rounded a list of must-see venues around Chicago.

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Architecture practice Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) have designed a concrete pavilion for the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial. Today, the practice is unveiling the work of its interdisciplinary practice with Stereoform Slab, a to-scale prototype of a future building system made using advanced robotic fabrication techniques. The project is simultaneously an activation and an exhibition that illustrates a design method that reduces the carbon footprint of concrete construction.

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Wolf Point East, a 665-foot residential tower, part of the last remaining development along the Chicago River, topped off and is near completion. Designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, and part of a master plan to redevelop the area, the east tower generates 700 rental units, 35,000 square feet of amenities, and 4,000 square feet of retail at street level.

The Chicago Architecture Biennial has released its cultural agenda for this year’s edition of the international exhibition. Held in the Chicago Cultural Center and all over the city, from the 19^th of September 2019 till the 5^th of January 2020, this edition under the theme of: ... And Other Such Stories, is going to be curated by the artistic director Yesomi Umolu, the executive director Todd Palmer and co-curated by Sepake Angiama and Paulo Tavares.

The Global Climate Strike is set to happen on the 20^th of September 2019, just before the UN emergency climate summit, where people will disrupt their work to protest and advocate for actions against climate breakdown. Architects are joining on the march, through “Architects Advocate”, a movement encouraging the professionals of the industry to stand in solidarity with the rally.

The Mies van der Rohe residential building, the Bailey Hall built in 1955, at Illinois Institute of Technology will be subject to renovation works by Dirk Denison Architects. The Chicago-based firm will modernize the mechanical, structural, and interior works, modifying its original function, and introducing a new configuration to host up to 330 first- and second-year students, while the exterior will remain faithful to the original design and the ground floor lobby will still hold on to the Mies’ iconic recessed glass lobby.

The Obama Presidential Center by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and Interactive Design moves forward as a federal judge tossed out the lawsuit against it. The planned $500 million, 20-acre campus faced an initial ruling from a district judge that allowed the lawsuit to proceed and stalled construction for four months. Now U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey stated there will be no halt in construction.

Architect and godfather of Chicago's architectural community, Stanley Tigerman, has passed away. At 88 years old, Tigerman died in his home town of Chicago after a long battle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Former director of the architecture school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, he founded his own practice, Tigerman McCurry, in the early 1960s.

The Elmhurst Art Museum has unveiled details of a new installation taking place in the Mies van der Rohe-designed McCormick House in Chicago. Designed by Luftwerk, a Chicago-based artistic collaborative of Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero, the “Parallel Perspectives” installation is a site-specific exhibition that uses color and light interventions to activate and interpret the house, celebrating the use of geometry in the mid-Century prefab prototype.

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