City in a Snow Globe

City in a Snow Globe presents a series of imagined worlds where Chicago’s downtown lakefront is alive with activity in the winter months. The exhibition asks visitors to imagine the possibilities of our beautiful public lakefront.

Designed by the Chicago architecture firm UrbanLab, City in a Snow Globe consists of five individual scale models of winter scenes that visitors can peer into. They include Polar Bear Plunge accommodations, monumental snow men, winterized displays at Buckingham Fountain, plus more novel and exciting ways to inhabit the lakefront when it’s cold outside.

Accompanying the second-floor exhibition will be a display on the first floor featuring more than two dozen snow globes from local designers and architecture firms. Each participant was asked to design around the theme of embracing Chicago winters. The results are fantastical and imaginative interpretations of what it means to be in the city during the coldest months.

After visiting the exhibition, get started on your holiday shopping at the CAC Design Store! It features thoughtful and unique gifts for everyone on your list, from the architecture buff to the design lover, the diehard Chicagoan to the inquisitive child, and everyone in between. In conjunction with City in a Snow Globe, a commemorative snow globe ornament featuring the Chicago River and world-famous Chicago skyline will be on sale exclusively in the Design Store, and included with your purchase of a Chicago Architecture Center gift membership bundle.

We'd like to thank the following individuals and firms for participating in this exhibition by designing the snow globes on view: Jonathan Milller/IIT College of Architecture; Joseph Altshuler, Zack Morrison, Barbara Gordon and Amir Zarei at Could Be Design; Bryan Conner, Danyealah Green-Lemons, Kelly Murphy, Brett Weidl and Donald Zellefrow at MKSK; John Campbell, Caroline Buecker, Joseph Steinmann and Elizabeth Schneider at Goettsch Partners; Katherine Darnstadt, Nicolas Anderson, Louisa Zheng, Kelsey Zlevor, Robert Prochaska, Drew Smith and Sanjana Chavadi at Latent Design; Edra Soto and Dan Sullivan at Edra Soto x Navillus Woodworks; Monica Chadha, Amanda Mauser, John Wolf, Ginger Stanciel, Ian Miley and Michelle McSweeney at Civic Projects Architecture; Olivia Juarez and Remy Bordas at Sculpturelandia; Kim Soss/Graham Resource Center; Joel Huffman at Vertu Architecture + Design; Doug Farr, Len Sciarra, Mercedes Miley, Rachel Tobe, Anthony Cataldo, Tucker Touchette and Breanne Trammell at Farr Associates; Meng Samantha Shui, Mejay Gula, Hana Ishikawa, Yuki Takeshima, Jenna Jones and Mia Dadian at site design group, ltd.; Elva Rubio and Husna Ozdemir at Rudiostudio, Pierscape Visions: Melk/Urban Lab and AEDAS; Joe Cliggott, Art Krohnert, Kandice Martinez, Niloofar Mohebbi Ashtiani, Lillian Park, Christy Scoughton, Min Ah Seo, Kelly Simic, Jessica Smith and Jing Yang at Stantec Architecture; Curioso; Ferdinand Dimailig, AIA at BOX Studios; Amanda McDowell, Madison George, Cierah Basa and Adam Emma at Hunstman Architectural Group; and CAC Teen Fellows Ivan Tejeda, Dana Aldweik, Maya Smith-Munyi, Charlotte Cox, Anjanee Holmes, Fabian Padilla, Wendy Morocho and Max Silberg.