Feature: All in All, It’s Just Another Brick in Chicago with Brick Tours
Brick expert Will Quam shared his love and knowledge of the clay rectangles on lsat weekend as part of the spring 2026 Chicago Humanities Festival. The author of Fire and […]
Review: Lift Up Your Eyes and See the Bricks, Fire and Clay: How Bricks Reveal the Hidden History of Chicago, by Will Quam
Open Will Quam’s Fire and Clay and you’ll find your notion of Chicago (and its suburbs) transformed. You’ll suddenly notice all the brick buildings and walls and individual rectangles of […]
Review: “Louis” and “Dan” to Each Other, Daniel Burnham and Louis Sullivan, by Trygve Thoreson
Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham lived parallel lives. Both were born in the East and came to Chicago in their youth. Both were poor students and relatively aimless until they […]
Dispatch: We Recap Films About Wacky Houses, Czech Design, and An Architect of Grief at the Architecture & Design Film Festival
The Architecture & Design Film Festival, opens in Chicago tomorrow, Thursday, February 19, and runs through Sunday, February 22, at the Chicago Cultural Center and the Gene Siskel Film Center. The festival […]
Preview: Architecture & Design Film Festival to Offer 10 Feature Films on Sustainability and Design Themes
The Architecture & Design Film Festival, a touring international film festival, returns to Chicago next week. The festival runs Thursday, February 19, through Sunday, February 22, at the Chicago Cultural Center […]
Review: Seeing Beauty in the Ordinary, Chicago Homes: A Portrait of the City’s Everyday Architecture
One of the many joys of reading Carla Bruni and Phil Thompson’s Chicago Homes: A Portrait of the City’s Everyday Architecture is the way the book dazzles the reader with […]
Review: Apocalyptic Fears and Apoplectic Rage, Walking Chicago’s Coast: A 63-Mile Journey to the Indiana Dunes, by Michael McColly
Based on its bright, attractive cover of the lakeshore skyline, Walking Chicago’s Coast looks like one of those ain’t-Chicago-great booster books written to promote the city as a world-class metropolis […]
Review: State of the Fine Arts: Chicago’s Fine Arts Building, by Keir Graff
How does an old Chicago building survive? Public outcry and organized protest have saved a few, yes, but it usually comes down to owners and occupants continuing to give a […]
Interview: Robert Loerzel on The Uptown: Chicago’s Endangered Movie Palace
Sometimes the biggest things go unnoticed. The Uptown Theatre, for example. For a full century it’s stood at 4816 North Broadway, always there but overlooked by passersby since it closed […]
Review: Imposing the Human Mark on the Landscape, Earth Shapers, by Maxim Samson
Early on in Earth Shapers: How We Mapped and Mastered the World, From the Panama Canal to the Baltic Way, Maxim Samson writes, “Every landscape tells a story—the challenge is […]
Feature: Outdoor Art on the Mart and at the Morton Arboretum
It’s outdoor art season in Chicagoland, finally, and two venues are bringing the bright, bold colors to our blooming prairie. Architecture and design firm Perkins&Will, in partnership with Chicago’s Department […]
Review: Nora Wendl Explores the Relationship That Resulted in That Famous House in Almost Nothing: Reclaiming Edith Farnsworth
“The house is a house, but it is also a metaphor; it has been described as a quantity of air trapped between floor and roof, … as a glass cage, […]