Archinect - News

Chicago - Five Great Buildings

2013-05-23T16:59:00-04:00

Chicago has many truly great buildings. It sits firmly on the map of global architecture and is the birthplace of the skyscraper. Creating a short video about just five great buildings is doing this city a massive disservice, as there are many and this is simply my thoughts.

Navy Pier remake adds urban park elements

2013-05-20T14:53:00-04:00

Some members of Chicago's design community have said privately that the Navy Pier project's parameters, which limited the scope of changes, stifled creative possibilities, even for highly regarded designers such as Corner. "Anything that makes it more parklike is all to the good," said eclectic Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman. "It can only go up, architecturally."

Hawaii fights for Obama presidential center

2013-05-08T12:54:00-04:00

The president still has three years in office, but eventually his thoughts will turn to what comes afterward. [...] A presidential library has to be easily accessible to scholars and visitors, so Chicago has a clear advantage. That’s why Honolulu’s leaders named their public campaign carefully: The Hawaii Presidential Center Initiative, not a presidential library.

Previously: The LA Times' Christopher Hawthorne reviews the "fittingly blunt" Bush presidential library

Winner of 2013 Mock Firms International Skyscraper Competition

2013-05-06T16:54:00-04:00

Winners have been announced recently at the fifth annual Mock Firms International Skyscraper Competition, organized by Chicago Architecture Today. [...] The top title of International Skyscraper and Mock Firm Champion (a combination of architectural and marketing efforts) was awarded to the team AZAHAR Architecture composed of five architecture students and one professor from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain.

Lawsuit dropped over Prentice preservation

2013-02-14T19:48:00-05:00

Two preservationist groups have dropped a lawsuit challenging the City of Chicago’s decision to deny landmark status to the old Prentice Women’s Hospital. Northwestern University plans to demolish the building in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood to make way for a new biomedical research facility. The decision to drop the lawsuit clears the way for Northwestern to carry through on it plans.

Jeanne Gang and the Greening of Chicago

2013-01-25T12:31:00-05:00

Among Gang’s intentions is to invite a “more wild version” of nature into cities, using what she refers to as “green infrastructure” to support and enhance urban landscapes. “Nature as we see it in cities is created, it’s man-made, it’s redesigned in a certain sense,” says Gang. “I think it’s important not for romantic reasons, but for practical and experiential reasons, to extend biodiversity within the ecosystem.”

Kickstart the next issue of SOILED!

2013-01-24T19:33:00-05:00

Making a mess of the built environment and the politics of space, one issue at a time.

With the arrival of a new year, SOILED has big plans. Building on our first three issues, Groundscrapers, Skinscrapers, and Platescrapers, we aspire to elevate our forthcoming issue No. 4 Windowscrapers: more dynamic, more tactilely pleasurable, and filled with more ephemera for you to soil. Rather than our current model of print-on-demand or lower-resolution PDF download, we seek to do a print run of 1,000 issues through this Kickstarter campaign. Working with a local print house will allow us more freedom to bring our vision to life, to sell SOILED at lower costs, and to distribute issues through independent bookstores, cultural institutions, and communal spaces across Chicago, the US, and beyond.

Get dirty with us in 2013! Help us spread the word far and wide. And did we mention the promise of excellent swag that you could earn by supporting our campaign? You have until February 1st to support this independent publishing endeavor!

More info:
http://soiledzine.org
http://kck....

Preservationists get 30 days to fix suit on old Prentice Women's Hospital

2013-01-14T13:05:00-05:00

A judge on Friday gave preservationists 30 days to amend their legal challenge to a landmarks commission ruling that would appear to doom old Prentice Women's Hospital, but strongly hinted that time is running out for the Streeterville structure.

Preservationists say rehabbing rather than demolishing Prentice Hospital would mean more revenue and jobs

2013-01-04T20:12:00-05:00

The study argues that re-using Prentice and developing a new facility would generate more money and jobs than demolition and new construction. The study claims the rehab would generate one-time taxes and temporary jobs, in fields ranging from construction to finance and insurance. And a re-designed, multi-purpose Prentice would mean 980 permanent jobs and just over $1 million a year in local tax revenues.

The reuse alternatives for Prentice were unveiled at a press conference on January 3, 2013. You can view the presentation here (PDF file).

Winners of the 2012 Chicago Prize Competition: Future Prentice

2012-11-19T18:08:00-05:00

The Chicago Architectural Club has selected three winners from a total of 71 new visionary proposals for Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital submitted to the 2012 Chicago Prize Competition: Future Prentice (plus an additional 10 solicited from up-and-coming Chicago architecture and design studios). The Chicago Architectural Club had partnered with AIA Chicago and the Chicago Architectural Foundation for the initiative.

Can Rahm's mind be changed? New ideas for saving Prentice Hospital

2012-10-31T13:12:00-04:00

On Tuesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel came down on Northwestern University's side in its battle to raze the old Prentice Women's Hospital, a building that preservationists want to save. Is that the last chapter in the story? Some architects hope not.

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s new UChicago Arts Center opens this weekend

2012-10-12T12:47:00-04:00

Tod Williams and Billie Tsien’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts opens to the public this weekend at the University of Chicago, setting up shop just steps away from storied structures designed by Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen. The $114-million project has been over ten years in the making

Northwestern University offers to replace Bertrand Goldberg's iconic design at the old Prentice Women's Hospital with another architectural 'marvel'

2012-09-21T16:53:00-04:00

... if they do tear down the building, they'll replace it with another architecturally significant structure. When I spoke with Ron Naylor, who works in Facilities Management at Northwestern, he promised a building "the aesthetics of such that people are going to marvel at it."

Paul Goldberger on the Fight to Save Chicago's Prentice Hospital

2012-08-15T17:07:00-04:00

Why bother, then? It’s a key building in the history of structural engineering, and its unusual form, a poured-concrete cantilevered shell, has few if any equals in modern engineering. Almost nothing else looks like this building, and in a world of carbon-copy architecture, its loopy, futuristic curves are unique: a concrete rocket ship amid Chicago’s glass boxes. A little weird, yes, but the more you look at it, the more you like it.

Wiel Arets Named Dean of Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture

2012-08-07T12:07:00-04:00

Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Provost Alan Cramb announced today the appointment of Wiel Arets as the new dean of the IIT College of Architecture. Born in the Netherlands, Arets, an internationally acclaimed architect, educator, industrial designer, theorist, and urbanist, is known for his academic progressive research and hybrid design solutions. He is currently the professor of building planning and design at the Berlin University of the Arts. His architecture and design practice, Wiel Arets Architects, has multiple studios throughout Europe and its work has been nominated for the European Union's celebrated ‘Mies van der Rohe Award’ on numerous occasions.

Arets, who was dean of the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam from 1995-2002, will join IIT this fall and will lead an academic program originally shaped by the vision and work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Considered by many to be one of the founders of modern architecture and design, Mies chaired the IIT architecture p...

Gehry, Gang and other leading architects urge Emanuel to save old Prentice Women's Hospital

2012-07-26T19:00:00-04:00

Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry and Chicago architect Jeanne Gang are among more than 60 prominent architects, educators and historic preservationists who on Wednesday urged Mayor Rahm Emanuel to save architect Bertrand Goldberg's old Prentice Women's Hospital and grant city landmark status to the threatened structure.

Gleaming new CTA station raises question: What price architecture?

2012-05-29T13:55:00-04:00

A safe, clean, on-time ride. That's all most of us expect from the Chicago Transit Authority. But why not ask for something more? Station architecture that puts zing in the journey and elevates the city around it. That's what we get at the crisply modern new Morgan "L" station on Chicago's Near West Side.

Chicago Past

2012-04-12T12:42:00-04:00

Chicago Past collects large photos of historic Chicago.

This is a great tumblr blog to follow if you're feeling Chi-town nostalgic.

SOILED's third installment: Platescrapers

2012-04-02T11:24:00-04:00

Platescrapers navigates itinerant fare, comestible politics, and gastro-ritual to purvey stories about social issues and exaggerated realities; each story illustrates food as a monument to galvanize the public.

SOILED is an architectural periodical based in Chicago. It investigates latent issues in the built environment and the politics of space.

SOILED's latest issue, entitled Platescrapers, is out! With three issues to date, SOILED is available in both a print edition and a free downloadable PDF via www.soiledzine.org. SOILED is published by CARTOGRAM architecture + urban design.

IN THIS ISSUE:

Stewart Hicks, Allison Newmeyer, and Joseph Altshuler challenge us to play with our food.
Annie Lambla connects yogurt making to dairy farms while observing the Midwest's culture.
Thomas Hillier recounts the exodus and edible nostalgia of an English twosome.
Greg Corso champions the inclusion of cannabis cultivation into architectural vernacular.
Kyle Andrew Sturgeon strategizes an infrastructure to combat the invasion of Asian carp.
Eylül Kethüda choreographs a mega-event around victuals, monuments, and mob mentality.
Francesco Vedovato sets the table with an ec...

James Corner Field Operations’ Winning Design for Navy Pier Redesign

2012-03-20T14:14:00-04:00

The team led by James Corner Field Operations has been selected as the winner in the international Navy Pier Redesign Competition. The Pierscape concept is part of the larger vision for Chicago's famous Navy Pier called The Centennial Vision, which seeks to make the "People’s Pier a truly iconic and world-class destination as it approaches its 100th anniversary in 2016."

The JCFO Team also included Terry Guen Design Associates, nArchitects, Leo Villareal, L’Observatoire International, Ed Marszewski, Fluidity, Patrick Blanc, John Greenlee & Associates, Chris Wangro, Billings Jackson, Buro Happold, Primera, HR&A Advisors, ETM Associates, Bruce Mau Design, and d’Escoto, Inc.

The winning proposal beat out stiff competition from the other four finalist teams, AECOM/Bjarke Ingels Group, Aedas Architects/Davis Brody Bond/Martha Schwartz Partners, !melk/HOK/Urban Lab, and Xavier Vendrell Studio/Grimshaw Architects.

Chicago Architecture Foundation Gets an Appetite for Design

2012-03-09T14:53:00-05:00

Many of us evaluate a restaurant based on the food; after all, restaurants are about eating. But how many of us stop and think about the design--like the look of the interior, the materials used, and the color scheme--when it comes to our food experiences? This is the question that the Chicago Architecture Foundation wants you to think about through their series Appetite for Design.

Hey, here's a rich architect!

2012-02-07T18:46:00-05:00

Between 2000 and when he left office last May, then-Mayor Richard M. Daley and agencies under his control approved roughly $20 million in payments to an architectural firm co-owned by his cousin’s husband. That cousin — Theresa Mintle — now is chief of staff to Daley’s successor, Rahm Emanuel. But city officials say Emanuel won’t be following Daley’s lead in approving new work for VOA Associates Inc., run by Mintle’s spouse, Michael Toolis.

Tigerman retains bite; exhibit encapsulates work, wit of Chicago's design provocateur

2012-02-05T12:22:52-05:00

Some architects swear by Stanley Tigerman. Others, especially those who’ve been wounded by Tigerman’s biting criticisms, prefer to swear at him. In a disarmingly honest moment, the 81-year-old Chicago design maven tells a film interviewer: “There’ll be a lot of people, when I pass away, that’ll say, ‘He’s gone. Thank God!’

Frank Lloyd Wright's Heller House is on the market for $2.5m

2012-01-31T18:08:00-05:00

Its astonishing 6,100 sq ft of outrageous opulence - including 33 stained glass windows, four fireplaces, several wood panelled walls, seven bedrooms and its very own working elevator - has allowed its residents to live in spectacular splendour for almost 120 years. Now prospective home-owners have the chance to buy into bliss as Chicago's luxurious Isodore H Heller House goes on the market for $2.5million.

John Ronan, an architectural star in Chicago

2012-01-14T02:21:00-05:00

A Michigan native who as a boy played with Legos and wrote a fifth-grade essay titled "Why I Want to Be an Architect," Ronan wears the black-on-black palette that is a modernist uniform and goes well with his fluffy gray hair. The recognition for the Poetry Foundation headquarters is his second national Honor Award from the AIA. The first, given in 2009, was for the brightly colored Gary Comer Youth Center in the South Side's Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood.

Chicago architect Gene Summers dies

2011-12-13T18:29:07-05:00

Chicago architect Gene Summers, the former dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the chief designer of the muscular McCormick Place convention hall, died Monday. Summers also served as a right-hand man for Mies van der Rohe, working on such significant projects as the Seagram Building in New York.

Rush hospital just what the doctor ordered?

2011-12-13T00:37:00-05:00

The new Rush hospital is already a major success as a work of architecture and urban design. It reminds us that a hospital needs to be designed for two sets of clients: Those who use it and those who simply pass by. The best-designed hospitals heal scars in the cityscape as well as patients. We'll know next year if the new Rush does both.

Best architecture of 2011: Despite the ongoing construction downturn, much to celebrate

2011-12-09T13:29:10-05:00

It was, on the whole, a quiet year for architecture, the lack of widespread construction activity reflecting the lingering impact of the 2008 financial crisis. But there were still new buildings to celebrate, along with rare victories for historic preservationists and an even rarer accolade for Chicago architect Jeanne Gang.

Navy Pier redesign finalists loaded with talent

2011-12-02T14:21:50-05:00

If bookmakers put odds on architecture, they surely would have made Chicago architect Jeanne Gang one of the favorites to win the big design competition to remake the public spaces of Navy Pier. [...] But when Navy Pier officials winnowed 11 semifinalist teams to a list of five finalists last week, Gang, surprisingly, lost out. And she wasn't the only high-profile name who didn't make the cut.

Navy Pier picks five teams to compete for redesign of pier's public spaces

2011-11-23T20:05:59-05:00

The five teams, which include a mix of architects, urban designers, landscape and other designers, are headed by the firms AECOM, Aedas Architects, James Corner Field Operations, and the Xavier Vendrell Studio, the only team headed by a Chicagoan. The fifth team, known as !melk, includes the large firm HOK.