The Museum of Contemporary Art opens two new shows this week, and other arts news. more ›

The proposed redesigns of Navy Pier were released earlier this week. Some love it. Some hate it. And some wish the redesign teams would stop using Daniel Burnham's words out of context to explain their own vision. Personally, while we have no idea why the city would want a glacier jutting out of the lake 365 days a year as proposed by !melk/HOK/UrbanLab, we do like the layered and intricate walkways imagined by Davis Brody Bond/Aedas/Martha Schwartz Partners. more ›

Mark your calendars all you architectural and experimental music enthusiasts. This is an event not to be missed! more ›

The Marina Towers have become an iconic image on the skyline of Chicago with their unique corncob architecture. Their distinctive look makes them an easily recognizable landmark that has appeared in many Hollywood films (including the memorable scene in the Steve McQueen film The Hunter where a car plummets from the parking garage into the river) and more recently graced the album cover of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But, as much as we admire the exterior and associate it with our city, what goes on inside? Who lives there? more ›

The City doled out honors to more than a dozen projects for excellence in historic preservation. Among the mansions and noted civic buildings was an unlikely honoree: a former White Castle. more ›

Did you ever notice how the tubelike arches of the Damen Avenue bridge kinda looked like plump, red hot dogs? They, sadly, got a grey paint job. more ›

Local architecture firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill is building the tallest scyscraper in the world in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. more ›

It is of course fitting that Chicago is the first stop for the Architecture and Design Film Festival after a successful run in New York City last fall. Billed as the first of its kind in the United States, the festival showcases 39 films along panels and book signings from its base at the Gene Siskel Film Center May 5-9. As the brainchild of Kyle Bergman, formerly the producer of a play about Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House and Phillip Johnson's Glass House, kicks off with a special screening at Wright auction house of a film about the same subject by artist and filmmaker Sarah Morris. Points on a Line explores the Plano, Illinois and New Canaan, Connecticut icons of modernism by way of the context in which they were created and now reside, meditating on the upkeep and maintenance of the structures and the complicated roles played by structures that were always much more than houses. more ›

Chicago dream-pop project Architecture caught our attention last year with the release of a soft and sweet cover of R. Kelly’s “Pregnant”, and then turned our heads again a few months ago when they teased us with a couple new singles from their upcoming debut EP, When We Were Young. Now, nearly six months after recording the EP, they’re finally ready to share it. more ›

Photographer Joseph Fouts also has a passion for creating high-resolution virtual tours of his photography, which he's parlayed into a business called 360 Comes Alive. Fouts recently contacted us to share with us links for virtual tours he's created of Holy Name Cathedral and City Methodist Church in Gary, IN.The City Methodist Church tour sucked a good portion of our work day away yesterday as we zoomed in and out, enraptured with the detail of Fouts's work. more ›

We found out about local artist Jeff Carter's IKEA hacking in October. Then, we wrote about his Gropius building models in response to the city's controversial decision to demolish the south side "Bauhaus campus." Then, in early February, three of Carter's works went up in Columbia's 310 Contemporary gallery on Michigan Ave. more ›

In late 2009, the lovely ladies of local dream-pop band Panda Riot -- Melissa Harris and Rebecca Scott -- started their own side project, architecture. Soon after they dropped a couple songs (including a cover of R. Kelly’s “Pregnant”) and announced that their debut EP would be released “soonish.” But 2009 was a long time ago, and we’d pretty much forgotten all about it until last week when they released two more tracks, “In the Morning” and “Tomorrow.” more ›

Curbed Chicago editor Mark Boyer has an interesting piece about plans for the Washington, DC-based National Museum of Health and Medicine's plans to open a satellite museum in the old Rock Records store at 175 W. Washington. more ›

Hint for "Around Town" contributors: photographs of the Harold Washington Library will always be considered for inclusion. It's certainly one of our favorite photography subjects. We just find the building from the architecture firm of Hammond, Beeby and Babka (now known as Hammond Beeby Rupert Ainge, Inc.) to be one of the underrated gems of downtown. We can pass by the Washington Library twice a day and find something new about it we hadn't noticed before. more ›

Fifty years ago next Monday ground was broken on a three acre parcel of land overlooking the Chicago River downtown. The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by construction workers, GE employees, local politicians and President-elect John F. Kennedy (via telephone). more ›

If you live in Lakeview or points north, you're probably familiar with the four-plus-one apartment buildings. These buildings, much maligned for their design, popped up like cold sores from the 1950s through the early 1970s. They were designed to maximize revenue for the property owner while providing minimal amenities. In their way, four-plus-ones were the precursor to the recent condo boom. more ›

The city announced yesterday that they're going to tear down three of the final four buildings in the Michael Reese Hospital campus, including the main hospital building. In announcing the teardown, the Public Building Commission said that the structure was too dangerous to leave standing. The campus's parking structure and hospital administration building are also slated for demolition. more ›

A Frank Lloyd Wright treasure in Riverside is up for sale. Per Curbed Chicago, the Coonley House is for sale for a cool $2.89 million. more ›

Today, the new Jewel store on Southport (3630 N. Southport Ave.) opens for business after a long period of construction. The former store on the same site, demolished in 2009, had been in business for more then 30 years. The new store is twice as big and brimming with claims of greenness. We got a chance to tour the new facility yesterday before it was open to the public, and to talk with a number of representatives from Jewel. While there are some genuinely awesome things about the new store, which we applaud, there are also some unanswered questions about its environmental credentials. more ›

We just caught word of local professor Jeff Carter's work in response to the city's continued and basically incomprehensible demolition of the south side "Bauhaus campus." If you've recovered from Olympics oversaturation, you'll remember that Michael Reese Hospital - designed largely by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius (and landscape architect Hideo Sasaki) - was going to be demolished for the Olympic Village. Even after Chicago lost the bid, though, the city decided to go forward with the demolition, hoping developers would snatch up the land and get at it. So far that’s not looking so hot. more ›

During pre-Prohibition days, tied houses were the original brewpubs. they were taverns that sold only the brand of beer that they were "tied" to. Chicago was a heavy tied house town during the day with Schlitz, and the distinctive globes and architecture can be found throughout the city. more ›

As Chicago magazine continues their celebration of turning 40 (which is the new 30, we hear), they've released yet another in their line of top 40 lists, this one focusing on the top 40 buildings of Chicago. It's an intriguing list given the city's rich architectural history and ongoing efforts to for historical preservation of these buildings, it's well worth perusing. There are a few things worth noting - no Trump Tower, no stadiums, and they (proudly) call it the Sears Tower - so it should generate some interesting conversation, especially that pick for Number One (hint above). more ›

The Art Institute has relegated a gem of an exhibit to the basement, sandwiched between offices and long, dim hallways, but Looking After Louis Sullivan: Photographs, Drawings, and Fragments is worth leaving the airy Modern Wing for. It features the work of three photographers—John Szarkowski, Richard Nickel, and Aaron Siskind—who documented Louis Sullivan’s architecture in the 1950s, three decades after Sullivan died in near obscurity. more ›

In the opening scene of Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead, architect protagonist Howard Roark sits on a stony crag and ponders the power and poetry of the wood, stone, water, and nature around him. He summons that power to create architectural masterpieces. Walking through Louis Sullivan’s Idea, the new Cultural Center exhibition, it was hard not to think of Roark. Just as Roark’s unbounded brilliance goes unappreciated as he fades into obscurity, this exhibition traces Sullivan’s career as one of a tragic genius that was misunderstood in his own era and misinterpreted in ours. more ›

This past Saturday, we ventured west to Oak Park for the 36th annual Wright Plus Home Tour -- the signature event of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. This year's event included tours of eight private homes designed by Wright and his contemporaries in Oak Park and River Forest as well as the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Unity Temple in Oak Park, and the Robie House in Hyde Park. more ›

Vocalo's Lee Bey takes a look at some of the best ambassadors for appreciation of Chicago's architecture: local hip-hop artists. According to Bey, love him (like we do) or hate him, Kanye has a keen eye for the city's architectural beauty. [via Gapers Block] more ›

Burned out on the evening singles events at the museums, but want something cultural to celebrate the work week's end? This Friday evening, April 16, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust will host their monthly Robie House After Hours from 6:00 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. For $35 ($30 for FLWPT members) guests can explore Wright's Hyde Park masterpiece while enjoying cocktails and light hors d’oeuvres. Advance tickets are suggested. more ›

A year after its opening, the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago has received the environmental certification it was seeking. The U.S. Green Building Council awarded the building with LEED Silver last week, says the Tribune's architecture critic Blair Kamin. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and the silver level is below platinum and gold as the third-highest rating. The certification governs five areas of a building's construction and existence: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. more ›

Given our city's heritage as the birthplace of the skyscraper and home to many of the nation's tallest buildings, it's not surprising that the rest of the world continues to look to our architects for their super-sized projects. A report out of the Middle East claims Chicago architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill have been tapped to design a skyscraper that will dethrone the recently completed Burj Khalifa as the world's tallest building. The Saudi Arabian tower will be located near Jeddah and rise at least 3,281 feet (one kilometer), more than twice the height of the Sears Willis Tower. The Trib's Blair Kamin reports that a formal contract hasn't been signed yet and that a spokesperson for Smith and Gill wouldn't confirm the report. more ›

Bruce Graham, the architect who designed two of Chicago's tallest and most iconic buildings, died this weekend at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla. He was 84 and died due to complications from Alzheimer's disease, according to Crain's. Graham designed the Willis Tower - formerly known as the Sears Tower - which was the world's tallest building from its opening in 1974 until 1996. At 1,451 feet, it's still the tallest building in the U.S. He also designed the 100-story John Hancock Center, which opened in 1970. He helped design the green-glass high-rise Inland Steel Building, located at 30. W. Monroe, in the 1950s. Graham, originally from Bogota, Colombia, was a senior architect at the famous firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, from 1951 to 1989. more ›