Behind-the-scenes tours (Members-only)

Thursday, May 31, 5:30-8:30pm

Behind-the-Scenes Members’ Only Tour: A Night at Navy Pier

Spend an evening exploring the architectural history, present use, and proposed future design of Chicago’s Navy Pier through a Chicago Architecture Foundation docent-led slide lecture featuring historic images, a walking tour of the Pier’s East End, and special sun-down cocktail reception on the Lake aboard the Tall Ship Windy. Open to the public in 1916, Navy Pier was the largest construction of its kind in the world and the only pier to combine the business of shipping with public entertainment. This program will explore the multi-faceted use of the pier over time and provide members’ with a special opportunity to view this historic structure from the Lake. The program is only available to Chicago Architecture Foundation members. Space is limited and advance reservations are required.

 courtesy of Holabird and Root

Monday, April 30, 6:00 pm

Behind-the-Scenes Members’ Only Tour/Special Event Monroe Building

Celebrate the Centennial at the Monroe Building

Join Chicago Architecture Foundation members for an exclusive after-hours event at the historic Monroe Building. This timeless classic, designed by Holabird & Roche, opened in 1912 as one of Chicago’s premier commercial structures. On the eve of the building’s centennial, Holabird & Root returned to undertake an epic restoration directed by owner Tawani Foundation.

Bertrand Goldberg, Marina City, Perspective Sketch,1985
courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago

October 20

Behind-the-Scenes Tour: Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention

Join curator, Alison Fisher, for a guided tour of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention, the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of the architect’s career. Featuring over 100 original architectural drawings and models as well as graphic and furniture designs, this seminal exhibition explores Goldberg’s 1930s futuristic designs to the iconic towers and hospital complexes of his mature career and his life-long dedication to architecture for urban environments. 

courtesy John Ronan Architects

September 13

Behind-the-Scenes Tour: The Poetry Foundation

Join us for a tour of the Poetry Foundation, the new home for one of the nation's leading poetry centers, with architect, John Ronan. The new 22,000-square foot building features a garden space that was conceived by the architect as an urban sanctuary and a number of sustainable design strategies and energy-efficient systems. Ronan has said the design of the building and the strategic use of materials are intended to mirror the way in which people read poetry. "Just as good poetry doesn't always divulge all of its meanings on first reading, the new building will engage the public's curiosity and unfold in stages."

August 21

Members-Only Photography Cruise

Calling all photographers! Don't miss this exclusive cruise designed for the architectural photographer in you. Photographer Dave Burk of Hedrich Blessing and CAF docent Susan Osborn will lead this early morning cruise with abbreviated commentary, photography tips, and continental breakfast. This intimate cruise aboard Chicago's First Lady will give you plenty of room to move about the upper deck and get that perfect shot!

Baha'i Temple, Wilmette
photo: Paul Slaughter

June 18

Behind-the-Scenes Tour: Baha’i Temple

The Baha’i House of Worship for the North American Continent, one of only seven Baha’i Temples in the world, is a Chicagoland architectural icon. The landmark structure, located in Wilmette, has a rich history and boasts a stunning exterior and interior design, with beautiful gardens and reflecting pools. Scott Conrad—architect of the comprehensive Baha’i Temple restoration and coming Baha'i National Visitor Center—leads members on a tour of the temple and grounds.  He will discuss the history of the complex, including the studio where architect Louis Bourgeois lived during Temple construction.

June 5

Behind-the-Scenes Tour: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Avery Coonley House

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Avery Coonley House complex (1907-12) is widely regarded as one of the architect’s finest Prairie residences.  One of the first examples in Wright's work of the zoned plan, the house boasts an elegant exterior with a geometric frieze of inlaid tiles and stucco with wood-trim. Owner Dean Eastman, who has received several awards for his meticulous restoration of the property, including an honorary membership to the American Institute of Architects, leads members on a tour of the residential complex. The tour culminates in a reception overlooking the extraordinary Jens Jensen landscape design, which built upon and incorporated Wright’s own plan.

Lincoln Park Zoo South Pond Pavilion photo: Beth Zacherle, Studio Gang Architects

May 21

Behind-the-Scenes Tour: Studio Gang’s South Pond Project

Architect Harry Soenksen leads members on a tour of the South Pond project at Lincoln Park Zoo. Studio Gang’s design transformed a dilapidated, 19th-century urban park pond fed by city tap water into a natural habitat and an exhibit on pond life for the zoo. A boardwalk made of recycled plastic milk bottles circumscribes the pond and passes through different educational zones describing animals, plants and habitats. A stunning pavilion integrated into the boardwalk sequence provides shelter for open-air classrooms on the site. Inspired by the tortoise shell, its laminated structure consists of prefabricated, bent-wood members and a series of interconnected fiberglass pods that give global curvature to the surface.

March 9

The Legacy at Millennium Park

Gary Klompmaker of Solomon Cordwell Buenz and Rich Hanson of Mesa Development lead CAF members on a tour of the 72-story Legacy at Millennium Park, an elegant condo tower that overlooks its namesake park.  The tower is oriented and sculpted for optimal views of the park and Lake Michigan, and sustainable elements are incorporated throughout. It also respects the existing urban fabric of smaller-scaled, landmarked buildings, and features restored historic facades deftly incorporated into the building's base.

The South Branch of the Chicago River near Roosevelt Road in 1910 

February 26

Curators’ Tour: The Lost Panoramas: Chicago and the Illinois Valley a Century Ago

Authors Richard Cahan and Michael Williams lead a gallery walk of the exhibition The Lost Panoramas: Chicago and the Illinois Valley a Century Ago, which presents plate images from the Chicago Water Reclamation District Archives taken between 1894 and 1928.  This remarkable show unveils a forgotten world of turn-of-the-century Chicago and Illinois landscapes. One of the highlights is a series of images that carefully document one of the great engineering feats of the twentieth century—the reversal of the Chicago River.

October 19

Louis Sullivan's Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral

Join us for an exclusive look at an architectural gem in the heart of Ukrainian Village—Louis Sullivan’s Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral (1903). The Cathedral, which was designed to resemble a Russian provincial church, was constructed in part with funds from Czar Nicholas II to serve Chicago’s Russian Orthodox community. The building received National Trust Landmark status in 1979 after receiving its Chicago Landmarks status in 1975, and is currently undergoing massive exterior restoration.  Father John Adamcio will conduct the tour of the landmark cathedral and rectory.

R. W. Glasner Studio (detail)
courtesy Cityfiles Press

June 5

R. W. Glasner Studio: Edgar Miller’s Masterpiece

Chicago artist Edgar Miller created exquisitely crafted handmade homes in the 1920s and ’30s chock full of exceptional stained-glass windows, frescoes, murals, mosaics, and woodcarvings. Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, co-authors of Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home, lead CAF members on an exclusive tour of the Glasner studio, which is generally regarded as Miller’s greatest work. Built as a "party house" for the industrialist Rudolph Glasner, the unit incorporates many design motifs, from Art Deco to English Tudor, all of them linked by common themes and the single hand that created them.

Columbia College Chicago Media Production Center
courtesy Thomas Nowak, Studio Manager, Photography Department at Columbia College Chicago

June 1

Studio Gang’s Columbia College Chicago Media Production Center

Margaret Cavenagh, project architect, Studio Gang Architects, and Alicia Berg, Vice President of Campus Environment at Columbia College Chicago, lead a tour of the Media Production Center (MPC), the college’s first new-construction building in its 120-year history. The 35,500-square-foot facility provides adaptable, state-of-the-art facilities including two film production soundstages, a motion-capture studio, digital labs, animating suites, a fabrication shop, and classrooms.  The MPC is designed to provide an innovative learning environment that fosters visual storytelling and cross-disciplinary collaboration, and inspires a new way of teaching media production.

April 27

Curator's Tour: Moholy: An Education of the Senses

Join curator Carol Ehlers for a tour of Moholy: An Education of the Senses at the Loyola University Museum of Art, which presents photographs, films, paintings, books, and prints by László Moholy-Nagy—Modernism’s great pedagogical visionary, artist, and designer. Moholy came to Chicago to promote a progressive, experimental, and hands-on approach to art-making based on the philosophy of the Bauhaus. This exhibition allows visitors to experience his transformative vision.

Image at left: László Moholy-Nagy, Ellen Frank, 1929, gelatin silver print, Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

April 18

Pilsen by Bus and Foot

Discover the neighborhood that has been home to many immigrants over a 170-year period. Each influx of new residents has left this community with architecture and art that reflect the aspirations of those who have come to live here. As a special member-only benefit, we will learn about the work of the Resurrection Project, a community-based organization. Lunch at a local restaurant combined with a discussion of Pilsen’s mural history is included.

March 25

Joffrey Tower

Join us for this unique visit to Joffrey Tower (Booth Hansen Associates, 2008), home of The Joffrey Ballet. John Kurtz, Facility Manager of The Joffrey Ballet, will take us on an insider's tour of the state-of-the art rehearsal studios, black-box theater, costume room, and other rarely-seen facilities.  We may also enjoy a sneak-peek at the dancers during their daily rehearsal (based on the company's availability).