So after watching Chicago Tonight on WTTW I was depressed. There was a news story about a mansion up for auction in Hyde Park whos sale will be benefiting The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (from where I just graduated)

The house ends up being John's. I wasn't prepared for this, I was under the impression that John's house was going to be restructured into a resource center for students...that was the going rumor when I left the school. A sort of Roger Brown but a la Interior Architecture...



John was one of my favorite instructors. The day we learned he had died I was in the middle of giving my midterm presentation. I just stood there silently, then walked out the door. From downtown Chicago I walked to Wrigley Field. I got there, realized I was there and turned back. I don't remember a single thing about that walk except at one point sitting out in front of a hospital somewhere along Halsted...John died March 2004.

The proceeds from the auction will be used to create a resource library at the school instead of John's house. Time will tell...



-pamela

"John W. Kurtich, William Bronson and Grayce Slovet Mitchell Endowed Chair at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has died. Kurtich joined the Art Institute faculty in 1968, and over the subsequent 35 years taught film-making, environmental design, interior architecture, architecture, art history and performance. Kurtich was cited by his colleagues as instrumental in bringing an interdisciplinary aproach to the Institute, as embodied in the Interior Architecture Department's name. Interior Architecture was also the title of a book Kurtich co-authored with Garret Eakin (New York, 1993). John Kurtich served in the Navy for three years, and earned a Bachelor's degree in theater arts and cinema from UCLA, a Bachelor's degree in architecture from UC Berkeley and a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design from Columbia University. Kurtich's varied interests included archaeology. He participated annually as staff architect for New York University's excavations in Samothrace, Greece, and published his drawings from Samothrace in numerous publications, including The Rotunda of Arsinoe (with James R.McCredie, Georges Roux, and Sutart M. Shaw; Princeton,1992). Kurtich was an accomplished pianist, a registered architect, a gourmet cook, an avid photographer, a committed art collector and a theater producer. His friends and colleagues celebrated Kurtich's warmth, generosity and collegiality at a memorial service 5 April." - from sah.org