Interview: Tim Samuelson and the Intangible of History
When Timothy Samuelson stood in the center of his windowless, crowded studio, surrounded by gorgeous artifacts of the past, I thought he might break into song. “Nothing in here doesn’t […]
Review: Driehaus Museum Exhibit Honors Richard Nickel’s Passion to Preserve Louis Sullivan’s Legacy
The Richard Nickel story is both tragic and inspiring. The architectural photographer and salvager of ornament from Louis Sullivan buildings was committed to the fight for historic preservation in the 1960s, […]
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, […]