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During the 1930s, the Chicago Surface Lines streetcar company documented every major intersection in Chicago. Using large-format cameras, company photographers captured hundreds of neighborhood and downtown streetscapes. These remarkable images portray an elegant city, with cops on the beat, taut trolley wires, wide-open spaces, buildings lathered in terra cotta, vibrant nightlife, second-floor chop suey joints, and grand movie palaces.

Until today, this collection of photographs has remained undiscovered in the archives of the Chicago Transit Authority. The public has never seen most of the images featured in Intersections. Taken simply to document the streetcar system, the pictures demonstrate how L trains and buses help define Chicago life and how they reflect the city’s growth and development.

These photographs form the heart of a new book,
Chicago: City on the Move, by Michael Williams, Richard Cahan, and Bruce Moffat. CAF celebrates the release of this publication with the Intersections exhibition and related programming throughout the fall.

August 8 - November 16, 2007

The exhibition encourages visitors to explore suburban roads, a coffee shop, a bus stop, a living room, and an office cubicle to learn how their decisions determine the health of their neighborhoods and the quality of their lives.

Me, Myself and Infrastructure appears thanks to the generous support of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) represents more than 140,000 members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. It is America’s oldest national engineering society. ASCE is the leading advocate for the responsible and sustainable development of our infrastructure and environment.


Price Tower Arts Center
Photo by Jeff Millies, Hedrich Blessing, 2005.

Prairie Skyscraper: Frank Lloyd Wright's Price Tower

January 18-April 29, 2007

The exhibition was organized in celebration of the 50th anniversary of this masterpiece by the Price Tower Arts Center in cooperation with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona. "We are thrilled that the Chicago Architecture Foundation will host an exhibition that celebrates this milestone work by Frank Lloyd Wright," says Lynn Osmond, Chicago Architecture Foundation President and CEO. " The city where the skyscraper was born is also the city of Wright's early architectural legacy. It is fitting that Chicago should experience the joining of the two through this exhibition."

"Prairie Skyscraper documents how this singular building came into existence and demonstrates how it epitomizes Frank Lloyd Wright's lifelong passion for merging architecture, design and art," notes Richard P. Townsend, Executive Director and CEO of Price Tower Arts Center. The exhibit includes a selection of documents, photographs, building components, and reproductions of drawings from Price Tower Arts Center and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation archives. It also features original furnishings including desks, chairs, tables and textiles designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, many of which have never been exhibited. An illustrated catalogue edited by exhibition curator Anthony Alofsin will be available for purchase in the Chicago Architecture Foundation shop.The large-format 176-page book features 150 color illustrations, catalogue entries, and essays by Wright scholars.

Organized by Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville , Oklahoma, in cooperation with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona. The exhibition, its tour, and publication are made possible in part by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Buell Family of Bartlesville, the Silas Foundation, and the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department. The exhibition installation has been designed by Zaha Hadid and Office of Zaha Hadid, London, and co-produced by Price Tower Arts Center and Yale University Art + Architecture Gallery.


Aerial view of Iroquois Landing. Courtesy of Friends of the Parks
Completing the South Lakefront Parks: The Last Four Miles

January 25 – March 10, 2007
Co-Presented by Friends of the Park

Chicago’s 26 miles of public lakeshore park system create a linear park expanse that is unrivalled around the world for its beauty and public accessibility. However, two stretches along the lakefront totaling approximately 4 miles are not public parks but remain in private or quasi-governmental ownership.

This exhibition will present the final plan for the design of the south lakefront, a result of a new initiative undertaken by Friends of the Parks to work with citizens, park advisory councils, community groups, public officials and government representatives to envision a plan to complete Chicago’s lakefront park system from Evanston to the Indiana border.

September 20 – November 15, 2006

The Learning from North Lawndale exhibition is designed to promote a deeper understanding of the west side community’s unique place in our nation’s history. One of the densest communities in Chicago for much of its early history, North Lawndale is an archive of early 20th century American architecture. The exhibition interweaves the community’s many stories and chronicles its transition from a predominately Jewish community, known as “Chicago Jerusalem” in the 1920s, to a vibrant African American community, which was the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Chicago civil rights campaign in 1966. Over 100 images illustrate the community’s stately greystone homes, elegant parks and gardens, synagogues and churches, and impressive civic structures. These buildings have hosted significant historic events and individuals. Benny Goodman, Golda Meir, Otis Rush, Dinah Washington, and Dr. King all called Lawndale home at one point. Other exhibit highlights include: Sears, Roebuck and Company, whose world headquarters were once in North Lawndale; Route 66, one of North Lawndale’s and the nation’s most celebrated roads; one of the nation’s first luxury movie palaces; and the blues music known as the “West Side Sound,” which originated there. In celebrating North Lawndale’s rich historic and architectural legacy, this exhibition illustrates the importance of memory, community reflection, and pride of place among today’s North Lawndale residents who want to preserve their heritage, while exploring new possibilities for growth.

Download PDF version of Exhibition Guide

EXHIBITION SPONSORS EXHIBITION PARTNERS

Fannie Mae Corporation
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
Homan Arthington Foundation
Illinois Department of Commerce
and Economic Opportunity
Illinois Humanities Council
National Endowment for the Arts
New England Builders, Inc.
Steans Family Foundation
Lawndale Heritage
Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago
Chicago Architectural Club
College of Architecture and the Arts at the
University of Illinois at Chicago

 


Aerial view of of Ponte Parodi in Genoa, Italy,
designed by UN Studio.
January 28– May 7, 2006

The Chicago city motto is “Urbs in Horto”, or “City in a Garden”. With the exhibition Open: New Designs for Public Space, the Chicago Architecture Foundation investigates the evolving conditions of public space in Chicago — from the spectacular new Millennium Park to the development of streets and gardens in neighborhoods throughout the city. More than three hundred architectural renderings, photographs and models illustrate issues of concern to every Chicagoan.

To provide global perspective, Open includes twenty contemporary public spaces on six continents. These projects represent the most innovative architecture, landscape and urban design from cities across the globe, by world-renowned designers such as Will Alsop, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Peter Eisenman, Norman Foster, Kathryn Gustafson and Zaha Hadid. The projects are organized into five main themes representing major trends in the design of public space: The Plaza Unbound, Information in Place, Opening the City, Active Memory, and New Meeting Grounds.

The exhibition on new public space around the world was organized by the Van Alen Institute of New York, with its Chicago narrative developed by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.

 McCormick Buildings 1899
Chicago Historical Society (ICHi 22833)
Ravinia Pavilion 1950
Holabird & Root archives
Holabird & Root: 125 Years
Through April, 2006

This year marks the 125th anniversary of the famous Holabird & Root architecture firm. In honor of this major milestone, the CAF will host a retrospective of Holabird & Root’s achievements in an exhibition featuring Hedrich Blessing photography.

Federal Campus, Oklahoma City by Ross Barney + Janowski Architects Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio by
Zaha Hadid Architects
Glass Pavilian at the Toledo Museum of Art. Toledo, Ohio by SANAA Light Rail Transit Stations, Minneapolis, Minnesota by Julie Snow Architects SOS Children's Village Community Center, Chicago, Illinois by Studio Gang Architects
June 23 – November 20, 2005

“Five Architects” is an exhibition of five public buildings in the Midwest, by five different architects: the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Zaha Hadid Architects; the Federal Campus, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, by Ross Barney + Jankowski; the Glass Pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, by SANAA; Light Rail Transit Stations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Julie Snow Architects; and the SOS Children’s Village Community Center, Chicago, Illinois, by Studio Gang.

In contrast to the 1972 book of the same name, in which a group of young New York architects attempted to define themselves as a unified “school,” this exhibition illustrates a trend towards social, geographic, and aesthetic diversity of contemporary architecture.

Five Architects is sponsored by Lead Foundation Sponsor of Five Architects



Additional funding generously provided by:
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
Graham Foundation
Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity
Illinois Humanities Council
National Endowment for the Arts


January 27– May 2, 2005

CAF will host a major traveling exhibition on the Chicago leg of its national tour. New Federal Architecture: The Face of a Nation has already appeared, under different names, at the Center for Architecture in New York City and at the Octagon in Washington, D.C. Organized by the Design Excellence Program of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency often called “the nation’s landlord,” the New Federal Architecture exhibition will present more than a dozen U.S. courthouses, federal office buildings, and border stations, designed by some of the world’s best-known architects, such as Thom Mayne of Morphosis, Richard Meier, and Antoine Predock.

The exhibition demonstrates the GSA’s renewed commitment to design quality, after years of commissioning and constructing federal buildings with a greater regard for the bottom line than for the public good. New Federal Architecture will also introduce the GSA’s innovative process for the selection and design of federal buildings; the process involves the participation
of hundreds of peer reviewers: architects, engineers, and other professionals who evaluate the quality of an architect’s qualifications, and, after hiring, review the work in progress.

Racine Museum: Building an Institution

The John Buck Company Lecture Hall Gallery at the ArchiCenter

This exhibition explores the many individuals and groups who made the construction of the new Racine Art Museum possible, through a series of specially commissioned portraits by Scottish photographer Graham MacIndoe.


Through January 20, 2005

Some of the world’s best-known architects and engineers have submitted designs for pedestrian bridges across Lake Shore Drive. View all the entries and winners; the winning design will be announced during the exhibition run.

Architectural renderings, souvenirs, and never-before-seen photographs recall Chicago’s 1933–34 World’s Fair, A Century of Progress, which introduced modern architecture to the heartland.


Exhibition Partner
City of Chicago
Richard M. Daley, Mayor
Chicago Park District
Timothy J. Mitchell, General Superintendent & CEO
Exhibition Sponsor
W.E. O’Neil Construction Company
Sponsors
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation
Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity
Contributors
Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation
Dwell magazine
The Home Depot



June 1 ­ September 12, 2004
The green design movement started small, with houses, in the 1960s. Today, architects adapt
green technology to skyscrapers, shopping malls, and stadiums to meet ever-growing environmental challenges.
 
“Big & Green: Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century,” at the Chicago Architecture Foundation from June 1 through September 12, shows how large-scale green architecture can be both healthful and practical.  Models and drawings illustrate how major projects around the world can be made of renewable materials and can use energy-efficient utility systems to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, improve air quality indoors and out, limit our need for landfills, conserve water, and even stave off global warming. 
 
Organized by the National Building Museum, “Big & Green” compares recent projects like New York’s Conde Nast Building and Battery Park City to the Flatiron Building (1905) and Rockefeller Center (1932).  Before air conditioning, skyscrapers used operable windows and skylights for fresh air and natural light.  The newer projects documented in “Big & Green” are designed to sustain both the natural world and economic growth.  They combine healthful environments while fulfilling the demand for new, up-to-date buildings.
 

BIG & GREEN
is divided into five sections, each addressing an aspect of environmentalism:
• Energy
• Light and air
• Greenery, water, and waste
• Construction
• Urbanism

Public programs complementing “Big and Green” are made possible by a collaboration between CAF and the Field Museum, as well as in partnership with AIA Chicago, the U.S Green Building Council, and the City of Chicago’s Department of Environment and Department of Planning and Development. Generous support is also provided by the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation and the Graham Foundation.

Chicago Green: Chicago's Architectural Evolution in CitySpace
View Big & Green website
Local efforts in green design will inform “Chicago Green,” a complementary exhibit organized by CAF to run concurrently with “Big & Green.”  “Chicago Green” will explain public and private initiatives behind green projects as diverse as a Lincoln Park townhouse and a biomedical research lab converted from a Mies van der Rohe engineering building at the Illinois Institute of Technology.


The Way of Change: Central Michigan Avenue, Past, Present, and Future

 

September 25–November 23, 2003
in the Atrium Gallery at the ArchiCenter

Michigan Avenue is one of only five streets in the world where a wall of buildings faces parkland and water. The juxtaposition of natural and built scenery from Randolph Street to 11th Street is so rare and striking that last year, the City of Chicago designated the distinctive streetwall a landmark.

CAF explores Central Michigan Avenue’s development in a fall exhibition, “The Way of Change,” and in a book,
Images of America: Central Michigan Avenue. Seldom-seen archival images from the Chicago Historical Society reveal the past, and a new photo survey by Hedrich Blessing illustrates the present. The street’s future under Chicago’s new preservation ordinance will be envisioned by architects and developers and in a panel discussion

“The Way of Change” is underwritten by the Driehaus Foundation and the Central Michigan Avenue Association, with ongoing exhibition support from Boeing and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. CAF’s book on central Michigan Avenue is dedicated to the memory of Paul Ligon, past president of CMAA. The exhibition will be open daily, 9:30am to 6pm. Admission is free.


Road Trip: A series on new architecture within a day’s drive of Chicago

New Architecture at the Cranbrook Educational Community

Exhibiton installations

October 6, 2003 – January 18, 2004
The John Buck Lecture Hall

Cranbrook, the utopian enclave of schools and museums in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is sensitive about new buildings. Its original 1920s campus reflects the Arts & Crafts movement and the influence of Eliel Saarinen, who integrated art, academic, and athletic facilities to symbolize a holistic approach to education.

In the early 1990's, however, an $18 million expansion began, eventually adding the New Institute of Science building by Steven Holl, the Natatorium by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, and an entrance by Huhani Pallasma. Rafael Moneo's New Studios Building recently completed the expansion.

On display will be photographs and other materials documenting the design of Cranbrook's expansion

Generous cooperation from the Cranbrook Archives and finanical support of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.



Lobby of the Peter B. Lewis Building.
Photo: Grant Mudford


Road Trip: A series on new architecture within a day’s drive of Chicago

Gehry in Cleveland

June 18 – September 28, 2003

The John Buck Lecture Hall

To inspire business students at at Case Western Reserve University to embrace creativity, beauty, and non-hierarchical teaching methods, Frank Gehry designed the Weatherhead School's Peter B. Lewis Building from the inside out. He shaped large common areas and designed no two classrooms alike. He then wrapped these free-form spaces in a sculptural steel skin.

The result, wrote Michel Marriot in
The New York Times, is “an explosion of rippling brick, warped glass and cascading shingles of stainless steel frozen between Ka and Boom.” The interior has been compared to an art gallery with its off-kilter atriums, curving white walls, and natural light directed downward from high, slanting windows.

Peter B. Lewis, the iconoclastic founder of the Progressive Corporation, primary donor to the building fund and a long-time Gehry client, says the building “challenges the students, the university, and the City of Cleveland to break boundaries.” In models, drawings, and photographs, this exhibit will interpret Gehry’s design proces


INTERGEN
         
Brian Healy Architects Caples Jefferson Office dA Team O'Donnell 3D Design Studio

in the Atrium Gallery at the ArchiCenter

July 15 - September 7, 2003


To serve seniors who are raising their grandchildren, the City of Chicago asked architects around the country to design a housing complex that would include day-care and seniors' social services. The winning design will be a prototype for 10 complexes around Chicago. From 47 entries, a jury of designers chose five diverse, visionary firms to exhibit models and drawings:

• Office dA, Boston, (winning design)
• Brian Healy Architects, Boston.
• Caples Jefferson, New York.
. • Team O'Donnell/Freear/Rural Studio, based at Auburn University, Alabama.
• 3D Design Studio, Chicago.

This exhibition is funded in part by the City of Chicago Departments of Housing and the Environment, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, and by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Chicago Community Trust. The Chicago Departments of General Services, Graphics, and Reprographics, the Chicago Public Building Commission, and the Chicago Housing Authority provided in-kind support.

Competition Director: Denise Arnold AIA, Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities

Jurors: Grandparent activist Linette Kinchen and architects Jack Catlin, Eva Maddox, Sandro Marpillero, Eric Owen Moss, and Nasrine Seraji Bozorgzad

Educational Partner: Archeworks


111 South Wacker Drive
in CitySpace

June 2003

Lohan Caprile Goettsch Architects designed 111 South Wacker at the southeast corner of Wacker and Monroe, the former site of the US Gypsum building. Originally designed to sit atop a 120-foot pedestal supported by diagonal braces, the building was redesigned after September 11, 2001. The final design, as seen in the renderings, features a round, glass-enclosed lobby with space for a plaza and large-scale public art. Construction began in April, and the 50-story office tower is scheduled to open in 2005.

CitySpace is CAF’s interpretive space in the ArchiCenter. Its permanent exhibits include a 12x12-foot architect’s model of downtown Chicago, models of new Chicago buildings, interactive virtual tours of skyscrapers, videos of tours and interviews with famous architects, and a Chicago architecture timeline


St. Boniface Winning Proposal by Brininstool + Lynch, Ltd.

CAF hosts archdiocese competition for adaptive reuse

Recognizing that historic churches are the centerpieces of Chicago’s oldest neighborhoods, the Archdiocese of Chicago approached CAF to sponsor a design competition to save the façade of one of them: St. Boniface, a Romanesque Revival church at Noble and Chestnut streets that was closed in 1989.

Four prominent local firms were asked to submit designs resulting from a three-day, charette-style effort. Booth Hansen Associates, Studio Gang, Brininstool + Lynch, Ltd., and annex/5, the in-house design studio of A. Epstein and Sons International, Inc., submitted designs combining housing, retail, and/or public use.

As InSites went to press, the anonymous designs were to be judged by Donna Robertson, dean of the College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology; Charles H. Shaw, chairman of The Shaw Company; Jimmy Lago, archdiocese chancellor; David Bahlman, president of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois; and Ned Cramer, CAF’s curator. “This jury represents all points of view- architect, developer and client,” Cramer said. Archdiocese representatives have said that the successful purchaser of the St. Boniface property will be encouraged to consider the designs in a redevelopment plan.


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