The theme of the 2015 edition will be "The State of the Art of Architecture," named after Stanley Tigerman's 1977 conference, and will feature an array of exhibitions and newly commissioned works, including a photo exhibition by lensman Iwan Baan exploring Chicago. [...]

The eventt ... is being planned by a group of heavy-hitters, including co-directors Sarah Herda, Director of the Graham Foundation, and Joseph Grima, former curator of Storefront for Art and Architecture — chicago.curbed.com

Yesterday, during a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria, Chinese architect Ma Yansong of MAD Architects unveiled his design concept for the future Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts and told reporters that his concept — a seven-story, dome-like structure that gently slopes towards a halo-like observation deck — represents a "new type of architecture." That may be an understatement. — chicago.curbed.com

In a large evening benefit dinner at IIT College of Architecture's S. R. Crown Hall in Chicago last night, Álvaro Siza and Herzog & de Meuron were announced as the winners of the inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP).

Established by IIT architecture dean Wiel Arets and launched earlier this year with Phyllis Lambert and Dirk Denison, the MCHAP honors what is considered the best built works in the Americas. — bustler.net

Barack Obama still has two long years left to cement his legacy as something between “yes we can” and “at least I tried”. Regardless of how history remembers him, Obama will always represent a shift from the old guard, an idealistic starting point for what (and who) future presidents could be. For now, though, his official museum, his keeper of secrets: couldn’t that still be a tangible change we can believe in? At least an architectural one? — theguardian.com

For some historic preservationists on the North Shore, the economic downturn in 2008 had a silver lining, bringing a lull in tear-downs and new-home construction that gave scores of vintage properties a reprieve from the wrecking ball.

But six years later, officials in north suburban Winnetka tasked with preserving historic homes say that reprieve has clearly ended. They report that demolition permits have nearly doubled, with 36 issued in 2013, up from 19 in 2009. — chicagotribune.com

When we talk about why some places gentrify and others don't, there's often a pressing, underlying question at stake: To what degree is gentrification bound up with and shaped by race?

This is the subject of a path-breaking new study by Harvard doctoral student Jackelyn Hwang and urban sociologist Robert Sampson published in the August issue of the American Sociological Review. — citylab.com

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas on Monday will announce an architectural team for his controversial planned museum on Chicago's lakefront: an avant-garde Chinese designer whose credits include Toronto-area skyscrapers dubbed the "Marilyn Monroe Towers" and Chicago's Jeanne Gang, shaper of the undulating Aqua Tower here. — chicagotribune.com

HOK has just unveiled its design for the Obama Presidential Library. Although several institutions in Chicago have submitted their own bids for the new museum and library, the global architecture and engineering office states that it submitted this design in coordination with the Museum Campus Foundation, which is an organization comprised of a number of community groups located in Bronzeville. — chicago.curbed.com

For the nineteenth edition of Screen/Print, Archinect excerpted from a new collection of essays titled Chicagoisms. - vado retro had a complaint "ragged right is, well, raggedy. widows and orphans galore. who did this page layout? it is not good"...

The upstart exhibition, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to announce Tuesday, will be called the Chicago Architecture Biennial, a nod to the prestigious Venice Biennale, which just opened its 14th international architecture exhibition.

Chicago is billing its biennial as North America's biggest survey of international contemporary architecture, but the event faces a crowded field. — chicagotribune.com

On Thursday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel belatedly jumped into the fray after a public campaign against the sign on Chicago's second-tallest building spearheaded by the Chicago Tribune’s Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin.

“Mayor Emanuel believes this is an architecturally tasteful building scarred by an architecturally tasteless sign,” Kelley Quinn, the mayor’s newly-appointed communications director, said in an emailed statement. — politics.suntimes.com