Dear Colleague:

Greetings from Chicago! We invite you to join us at the Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) during the summer of 2010 for the NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshop for School Teachers, “The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation.”

The skyscraper, more than any other building type, gives American cities their distinctive character. During this week-long workshop, participants will investigate the American skyscraper as a physical and cultural construct. Scholars will present skyscrapers as artifacts and symbols of transformations in American life. Walking tours of the Loop to explore some of Chicago’s most spectacular examples of tall buildings, coupled with hands-on activities, will help bring this iconic building type to life. The workshop will help you create engaging lessons across the K-12 curriculum including social sciences and history, language arts, science, mathematics, and fine and visual arts.

CAF’s headquarters, located in the historic Santa Fe building (D.H. Burnham & Co., 1904), will serve as our base of operations for the workshop. The Santa Fe building is located in the heart of the downtown Chicago commercial district, an incomparable grouping of skyscrapers that will serve as the project’s landmark study site.

Culture: The invention of the skyscraper profoundly changed the physical and cultural landscape of nineteenth century cities. You will learn about Chicago as a laboratory where the physical space and patterns created by the skyscraper – on the streets and inside buildings – changed the relationship between individuals and their working environments, and between one another.

Geography: The development of skyscrapers in nineteenth century Chicago is closely linked to the city’s geography, as well as to major infrastructure innovations that reshaped the city’s landscape. By exploiting its geographic location and creating new systems which linked Chicago with the rest of the country, the city attracted large waves of migrants and immigrants throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This population boom, along with the rise of new industries, created and fueled new commercial developments. Businesses and people needed to be in close proximity to one another, but with the high price of land, developers had no choice but to build vertically.

Philosophy: While technological innovations during the period from 1885–1895 made skyscrapers physically possible and commercially feasible, architects were just beginning to explore and understand guiding aesthetic principles of this new building form. Louis Sullivan, an American architect trained in Boston and in Paris, wanted to break away from European architecture traditions and create a distinct American architectural form. While he was influenced by classical and European architectural traditions, Sullivan took a different path from his contemporaries.

Art: Through sketches, drawings, and photographs, architects communicate the beauty, power, and identity of their designs. The Chicago Tribune Tower competition of 1922 invited architects from around the world to design “a new and beautiful home worthy of the world’s greatest newspaper.” More publicity stunt than true design competition, this event is remembered as both controversial and important to American architecture. It was Finnish architect, Eliel Saarinen’s second place winning entry that ended up influencing the designs of future tall buildings. Saarinen’s rendering—which illustrated a strikingly vertical skyscraper, set back at various points along its height—was borrowed by architects in Chicago and New York.

Industrialization: As the tall commercial office building became a standard fixture on the urban landscape in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chicago architecture firms grew to specialize in designing this new building form which was frequently exported to other American cities. Firms such as Holabird & Roche (established in 1880 and later renamed Holabird & Root) developed methods of creating prototypical commercial skyscrapers that still met the unique needs of their clients. At the same time, the spatial arrangement and amenities included in these office towers would shape the type of work done and the ways in which workers interacted with one another.

Tradition: The simultaneous influence of tradition and the rejection of those traditions have continually fueled architects’ ideas in the evolution of the skyscraper. The first Chicago skyscrapers, referred to as the First Chicago School, reflected European traditions, borrowing heavily from neoclassical designs. However, even during this time period, tradition was challenged. The Reliance Building (1895, D.H. Burnham & Co.) with its unusually thin curtain wall, is often seen as an important ‘protomodern’ building in American architecture. Seventy years later, the Federal Center (1964, 1974, Mies Van der Rohe) is an example of what came to be called the Second Chicago School of Architecture: a bold design aesthetic incorporating technological innovations that borrowed from historic architectural proportions and forms.

Week’s Activities
Our workshop begins on Sunday afternoon at 3:00pm and runs until noon the following Saturday. After a meet & greet opening reception with CAF staff at the historic Santa Fe building, we’ll introduce Chicago skyscrapers on our reknowned Architecture River Cruise.

Our days will generally run from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Each day of the week will begin with a presentation by one of the invited faculty scholars. The walking tours, activities, and readings will support the workshop's six major themes. Chicago Loop buildings we’ll be visiting during the workshop include: the Santa Fe Building, Fisher Building, Marquette Building, Monadnock Building, Manhattan Building, Field Building, The Rookery, The Auditorium Building, Sullivan Center (formerly Carson Pirie Scott), Tribune Tower, Reliance Building, and Federal Center.

Hands-on activities woven throughout the week will offer you a wide array of strategies for integrating skyscrapers and the built environment into your classroom lessons. Ample time is designed into the week for working with workshop leaders, master teacher, and workshop colleagues to develop teaching resources.

PLEASE NOTE: We have designed each day’s instruction to include a mix of lecture, discussion, tours, and hands-on application activities. You should be prepared to participate in outdoor walking tours of up to two hours in length. Additionally, many workshop activities will be conducted outdoors. We consider the activity level for this workshop to be moderately strenuous.

Here's what 2009 participants said about their experience at The American Skyscraper workshop in Chicago:

"I am even more of an architecture geek that I was before!"

"The visiting faculty was an all-star line up of academics and practitioners in the field."

"Housing was great.  Breakfast was substantial.  The housing was an easy walk to the classroom."

"Staying downtown and 'living among the skyscrapers' helped me have a better perspective for the field experiences throughout the workshop."

"The information gained will help me teach my young art students about architecture and skyscrapers with a depth I didn't have before."

"Overall, the workshop was amazing.  It will greatly impact my teaching and how I teach the industrial revolution and the growth of cities".

“Before, when I looked at skyscrapers, I interpreted the buildings with my own knowledge.  Now, I listen to the stories the buildings want to tell me.”  

Faculty
Gregory K. Dreicer, Ph.D., Vice President of Exhibitions and Programs for the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Greg Dreicer will explore with participants how the construction of buildings and the construction of meaning are inseparable activities, as well as discuss various humanities-based strategies for interpreting the built environment.

Henry Binford, Ph.D. is associate professor of History and Urban Affairs at Northwestern University. Through maps, images, and lecture and discussion, Professor Binford will present the geographical history of the Chicago area and will help you answer the question – why is Chicago here?

Tim Wittman holds a Masters of Arts from the University of Chicago in art history with an emphasis in architecture. Tim Wittman will help you understand the architectural and technological advances that led to the early skyscrapers, the physical characteristics of these early tall buildings and how architects struggled with guiding aesthetic principles for this new building form. Wittman will introduce how Louis Sullivan developed and set forth a set of design principles for the skyscraper.

Katherine Solomonson, Ph.D., is associate professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of several books on architecture, including The Chicago Tribune Tower Competition: Skyscraper Design and Cultural Change in the 1920s. Through a presentation and discussion of the submitted drawings, professor Solomonson will help you understand the impact the 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower Competition had on the architecture community and on the citizens of Chicago.

Robert Bruegmann, Ph.D., is an historian of architecture, landscape, and the built environment at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Sprawl: A Compact History and The Architects and the City: Holabird & Roche of Chicago, 1880–1918. Highlighting his fifteen years of research, Robert Bruegmann will use images, maps, and building plans to illustrate and connect the architectural history with the urban history of Chicago to tell the story of the architecture firm of Holabird & Roche.

T. Gunny Harboe, Principal at Harboe Architects, PC, gained a national reputation for his award-winning preservation work on Chicago’s 1895 Reliance Building. Gunny Harboe will help you understand how this building with its unusually thin curtain wall, is often seen as an important ‘protomodern’ building in American architecture. Harboe will use historic photos and building plans to help illustrate his presentation, and conduct a guided tour of the Reliance building.

Paul Steinbrecher earned his Master of Architecture at the University of Illinois – Chicago. Using images and building site plans of Mies’ Chicago buildings, Steinbrecher will help define modernism in general and Mies’ style in particular, discussing Chicago’s reaction to the glass and steel box. Steinbrecher's current projects include the restoration of Mies van der Rohe’s Federal Center and the construction of the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Joel Berman, ALA, Principal, Joel Berman Architecture & Design, teaches courses on sketching techniques and runs his own architectural practice. Through a presentation showing a variety of architectural drawings, Berman will help you explore how drawing techniques influence how we perceive buildings. Then following his presentation, he will take our group out on the street and guide us through a series of sketching activities to help us experience how to draw like an architect.

Mary Woolever holds a Master’s degree in Museum Practice, and since 1986, has served as the Art and Architecture Archivist at the Art Institute of Chicago. Ms. Woolever will guide a visit to the Art Institute of Chicago architecture archives to view sketches, plans, drawings, and other primary source documents by many of the renowned Chicago architects.

Chicago Architecture Foundation Staff
Jean Linsner, Vice President of Youth Education and Jennifer Masengarb, Education Specialist will lead the workshops. Together they have 19 years of experience at CAF developing and delivering a series of professional development, in- service, and pre-service workshops for K-12 teachers designed to model innovative ways to use the local built environment as a tool for teaching the core academic subjects. They are co-authors of Schoolyards to Skylines: Teaching with Chicago’s Amazing Architecture. Jean Linsner earned a Master of Science in Education degree from Indiana University. Jennifer Masengarb earned a Master of Architectural History degree and a certificate in Historic Preservation from the University of Virginia.

Master Teacher and Support Staff
Master teacher Teresa Laslo holds a Master of Arts in Special Education and has 30 years teaching experience. She taught middle school Social Sciences, and has served as a Social Sciences coach for high school and elementary teachers, and a Standards-Based Instruction coach for the Chicago Public Schools. Lauren Cochard is Youth Education Associate with the Chicago Architecture Foundation. She joined CAF in the fall of 2006 from the National Building Museum and is responsible for CAF’s student field trip program and family programs.

Resources, Readings, and Assignments
Six weeks prior to the workshop, we’ll send you a packet of selected readings which we strongly recommend you read prior to arriving in Chicago. The readings support the six major themes.

During the week, you will receive additional reading materials from lecturers. Additionally, you will receive your own copy of CAF’s Schoolyards to Skylines: Teaching with Chicago’s Amazing Architecture. This award-winning resource book from CAF is designed to help teachers use architecture as a dynamic tool for teaching social sciences and history, language arts, science, mathematics, and fine and visual arts. We will be incorporating several of the book’s activities into the workshop.

During the week, we will offer opportunities to meet with fellow participants, workshop staff, and our master teacher to begin to develop teaching activities. On our final day together, you will make an informal presentation on a teaching activity you are developing as a part of your participation in this workshop that incorporates the themes, teaching strategies, and primary sources from the workshop. You will submit an electronic version of your complete activity within one month of the workshop. We will post your activities on the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s website, together with additional resources, and images from our workshop.

We are interested in the impact of this workshop on your teaching, so we will be contacting you again six months after the completion of the workshop to ask you about its impact on your teaching and your students’ engagement with the subject.

Professional Development Credit
All participants who complete the workshop will receive a signed letter of completion indicating the number of workshop hours and a workshop description with syllabus. You may use these documents to receive continuing education credits in your home state. Continuing Professional Development Unit forms for Illinois teachers will be available at the end of the workshop.

Application Procedures and Deadlines
This workshop is designed principally for classroom teachers and librarians in public, private, parochial, and charter schools, as well as home schooling parents. Other K-12 school personnel, including administrators, substitute teachers, and classroom paraprofessionals, are eligible to participate, subject to available space.

To apply to this workshop, you must first register electronically with the NEH, then mail an application package to the Chicago Architecture Foundation as outlined below. For complete application guidelines and procedures, please click here.

A complete application package consists of three copies of the following collated items:
• Completed NEH cover sheet
• Your résumé
• Your essay application essay (no longer than one double-spaced page) as outlined below.

Plus one copy of a sealed letter of recommendation from the principal or department head of your teaching institution or the head of a home schooling association in support of your application.

The Application Cover Sheet
The application cover sheet must be filled out on line at this address:
http://www.neh.gov/online/education/participants/ Please fill it out on line as directed by the prompts. When you are finished, be sure to click on the “submit” button. Print out the cover sheet and add it to your application package. At that point you will be asked if you want to apply to another workshop. If you do, follow the prompts and select another workshop and then print out the cover sheet for that workshop.

Résumé
Please include a résumé detailing your educational qualifications and professional experience.

The Application Essay
Perhaps the most important part of the completed application is an essay of up to one double-spaced page. This essay should include information about your interest in the subject of this workshop and how the experience would enhance your teaching or school service.

Reference Letter
Applicants should provide a letter of recommendation from their school principal, department head, district administrator, or home-schooling association president as appropriate. It is helpful for referees to read the description of the project sent by the director and the application essay. Please ask your referee to sign their name across the seal on the back of the envelope containing the letter, and enclose the letter with your application.

Submitting your Application Package
Your collated application package must be postmarked no later than March 2, 2010 and should be addressed as follows:

Jean Linsner
VP of Youth Education
Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60604

Successful candidates will be notified by April 1, 2010. If accepted, you must confirm your participation by April 10, 2010. After this date, open spaces will be offered to alternates.

Thank you for your interest in our NEH Landmarks workshop, The American Skyscraper: Transforming Chicago and the Nation. I hope this letter gives you a good idea of what to expect from the workshop. If you need additional information, please email me at NEHLandmarks@architecture.org, or you may call me at 312.922.3432 x232. We look forward to receiving your application.

Sincerely,
Jean Linsner
Vice President of Youth Education

Equal Opportunity Statement
Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age. For further information, write to NEH Equal Opportunity Officer, 1100 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. TDD: 202.606.8282 (this is a special telephone device for the Deaf).