The above photo of a car elevator in the Loop during in 1936 has been making the rounds, via facebook, Windy Citizen, and Tumblr sites. It first came to our attention via "Letters of Note" (You remember them? They shared the 1991 letter from Madonna in which she expressed her displeasure with Chicago men.) editor Shaun Usher, who posted this via Twitpic. more ›

If you've lived in this town for more than a day then you begin to realize that you are surrounded, and sometimes compounded, by the vast amount of visuals; perhaps more than the eye can begin to absorb. Translated, there's a lot of beautiful stuff to look at. With design and art luminaries like Ed Paschke, Helmut Jahn and Mies van der Rhoe to the city's credit, the bar for visual excellence has been set extremely high to say the least; but at what cost? In an economy where everyone seems to have to do it all for no cost non-for-profit businesses tend to suffer in terms of design, i.e., websites, brochures and general artistic vision. Well, fear not for Open Hand Studio, an organization best know for giving small organizations the best in design at a lesser cost, is holding what they have dubbed Meet and Match; an event geared to give non-for-profit and community-based-organizations networking opportunities with top design organizations. more ›

Wow, underground buildings are the new above-ground buildings, apparently. First the Children's Museum revealed its dugout plans, and now the University of Chicago has yet more plans to keep its students sun-shunning mole trolls. We kid, we kid. more ›

If you need further evidence that cultural awareness is increasingly non-existent among the general populace, look no further than college blog Campus Squeeze. Following on the heels of its list of the 20 most beautiful college campuses, the site recently weighed in on what they deemed the 20 ugliest campuses in the country. While the prison-style buildings of Drexel University and the utilitarian blocks at Rochester Institute of Technology certainly didn't look appealing, we... more ›

A stand-off with an armed man in a Deerfield motel room ended peacefully this afternoon, after police used tear gas to get the guy to come out. Keep your eyes peeled for a comet on the Northeast horizon. The Salvation Army unveiled a plan today for a community center and athletic facility on West 119th Street. Architect Helmut Jahn designed the center, which will cost $160 million to build and endow. Volunteer searchers looking... more ›

During the last few years, this aesthetically-inclined Chicagoist has wondered more than once just what this city, renowned the world over for its architecture, was doing with its bad self. Every new building seemed to be either a ubiquitous 3- or 6-flat with a red brick front, limestone detailing and sterile concrete block sides, or monolithic and uninteresting residential tower. Blah blah bah… more ›

The Chicago Architecture Foundation honored its Patrons of the Year yesterday in the commercial, institutional and governmental categories. This is the first year for the awards, and they're meant to encourage and recognize architectural innovation. Listen up, Block 37. more ›

Helmut Jahn is speaking at the Art Institute tonight as the guest of the Architecture & Design Society. Yeah, it's a steep $15, you cheap-o bastard, but it's worth it: the guy's a living legend. Jahn's work is all over town—IIT student housing, the United terminal at O'Hare, the Thompson Center, and a handful of other structures were all "archi-neer[ed]" by Jahn. Tofutti break. more ›

» Roger Ebert gets a new site, adds a funny photo of himself more ›

Helmut Jahn is now going to be designing environmentally friendly housing for the poor in Chicago. Scheduled to be built next year on a vacant lot near Cabrini-Green, Jahn's building is environmentally friendly and made of stainless steel and glass. Its shape will be like a Twinkie, very similar to the Illinois Institute of Technology dorms he designed (pictured at the left). It will have rooftop wind turbines and solar panels, as well as a recycling system that collects rainwater and uses it to flush the toilets. more ›

The Tribune most definitely does not want fries with that, Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's. We all remember that about a month ago, McDonald's unveiled plans for a redesigned location on 600 North Clark, plans the Trib described as a "super-sized version of a 1950s drive-in." It turns out that McDonald's rejected some more innovative, architecturally interesting designs that are actually pretty rad. Helmut Jahn, Dan Coffey, and Martin Wolf each submitted a contemporary and creative plan, and while Chicagoist doesn't exactly expect McDonald's to be the major sponsor of modern architecture, it would have been kind of cool. more ›