Essay: Walking Graceland Cemetery with—and Without—Adam Selzer’s New Book
Near the end of my hourlong walk around Graceland Cemetery the other day, I went past a stone obelisk, maybe 30 feet tall, and noticed this on the side: SANDRA […]
Review: The Seed-Germ King: Louis Sullivan’s Idea, by Tim Samuelson and Chris Ware
Louis Sullivan’s Idea, a biography of the 19th century Chicago architect, by Chicago’s first cultural historian Timothy Samuelson, is, in the most literal sense of the word, a beautiful book. […]
Review: American Framing Highlights Trio of New Exhibits at Wrightwood 659
American Framing Wrightwood 659
Feature: Houses of Tomorrow Exhibit Explores Solar Design From the 1930s to Today
When the Homes of Tomorrow exhibit opened at Chicago’s 1933 Century of Progress, George Fred Keck’s design for a solar-powered glass house was a radical move into the future. Today, […]
Review: The Wright Place: Frank Lloyd Wright’s $10,000 Home
Frank Lloyd Wright’s $10,000 Home: History, Design, and Restoration of the Bach House Robert J. Hartnett Master Wings Publishing Despite any fame suggested by the hideous portmanteau starchitect, few architects […]
Review: It Is What It Is: Guide to Chicago’s Twenty-First-Century Architecture
Guide to Chicago’s Twenty-First-Century Architecture Chicago Architecture Center and John Hill University of Illinois Press As packed with tacky tourist traps as any city, Chicago has one irreproachable draw: its […]
Review: Wrightwood 659 Exhibit Views Two Doomed Buildings by Sullivan and Wright in Romanticism to Ruin
Wrightwood 659 is a museum dedicated to socially engaged art and to architecture. Its new exhibit—Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan & Wright—is an appropriate homage to that […]
Review: Modernist Homes in Midcentury Chicago, Modern in the Middle, by Susan Benjamin and Michelangelo Sabatino
Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929–75 By Susan Benjamin and Michelangelo Sabatino with a foreword by Pauline Saliga The Monacelli Press Pauline Saliga, executive director of the Society of […]
Review: Jessika Is a lot of Empty Drama with a Hollow Conclusion
I remember when “full motion video” or FMV was a phrase that helped sell CD-Rom computer games decades ago. I also remember when FMV fell out of favor, and any […]
Review: Females Seek Agency in Remy Bumppo’s Top Girls
Note: Top Girls was reviewed by Karin McKie and Kim Campbell on Women’s March weekend. Caryl Churchill wrote Top Girls in 1982, in the middle of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979-90 fraught, […]
Review: Deep South Side, Lee Bey’s Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side
Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side By Lee BeyNorthwestern University Press, 192 pages, $30 Reviewed by Patrick T. Reardon When Lee Bey writes about Pride Cleaners, he […]
The Summer of Bricks: LEGO Sculptures Come to Brookfield Zoo, Morton Arboretum
It’s official: LEGO has invaded the Chicagoland suburbs for the summer! Both Brookfield Zoo and the Morton Arboretum are currently hosting exhibits that spotlight the iconic colorful bricks. Titled “Brick […]