Results tagged “renzopiano”

       

We're keyed up about Saturday's grand opening of the AIC's new Modern Wing. As the largest expansion in the museum’s history (with a price tag of - holy shit - about $290 million), this new three-floor facility offers 65,000 feet of new galleries that will house both modern and contemporary works, photography, as well as architecture and design collections. It's sheer magnitude will make the Art Institute the second largest museum in the United States. And perhaps we should mention that the New York Times has given the Modern Wing an absolutely glowing review. (For a peep at their lovely photo slideshow, click here.)

Over the weekend, the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded to French architect Jean Nouvel. The prize, handed out by the Chicago-based Pritzker family, is intended "to honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture." Nouvel will receive the bronze medallion and a $100,000 purse at the ceremony, held at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on June 2nd.

Since “Project Runway” didn’t start till nine; we decided to do something educational to pass the time. We traipsed our hot, sweating, rear-ends over to the Chicago Architecture Foundation to hear Meredith Mack, VP of Finance and Operations of the Art Institute, discuss its new addition.

Chicago is the gifted child of the architecture world who can’t just settle for being top of its high school class. Recent developments at the Art Institute of Chicago, the worldwide praise for Millennium Park and the perennial success of the City’s Great Spaces and Places weekend make us feel like proud parents sending Junior to the university. Breaking ground on its new north wing, the Art Institute is embarking on the most significant expansion in its history. By 2009, the current building will connect to a majestic set of 21st century pavilions housing new space for modern and contemporary art, photography, temporary exhibits and architectural art. Helping make this vision a reality is newly hired architecture curator Joseph Rosa, who’s been wooed away from a similar post at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Chicagoist knows you dig architecture. And we also know that, sometimes, one heavyweight architectural event just isn't enough to scratch your architectural itches. Lucky for you, Millennium Park will be double-fisting it this evening with two high-profile architectural goings on: the awarding of the 2005 Pritzker Prize and the unveiling of the plans for the Art Institute of Chicago's new wing. We've told you a couple times about the Pritzker Prize, the architectural world's...

To prevent any possible damage during the construction of a 230,000 square-foot wing designed by architect Renzo Piano, Marc Chagall's "American Windows" will be removed temporarily from the Art Institute of Chicago on May 2, 2005. If you anticipate wanting to see the piece in the next four years, you'd better get down to the museum in the next week-and-a-half. The new wing isn't expected to be completed until 2009.

Wouldn't Millennium Park look nice with a plush, red carpet rolled right over the BP bridge and through the Lurie Garden? Wouldn't Joan and Melissa Rivers' derrieres look positively adorable reflected in the convexity of "the Bean?"