Sunday, November 21, 2010

Chicago Debates: The Malling of Chicago, Barry Bergdoll, Percier, Labrouste and Hittorffs, Richard Sennett, Pecha Kucha 16 with Ken Nordine - early notices on the December calendar

Because of the year-end holidays, the December Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events is looking to be intensely front-loaded, so we wanted to give you a heads-up on some great items taking place in the first few days of December.

On Wednesday, December 1st, at Goose Island Wrigleyville, the Chicago Architecture Foundation will be launching a series of Chicago Debates - "leading voices from architecture, design, business and politics as they debate the changing face of Chicago"  with The Malling of Chicago, with a spectacular panel including Ben Joravsky, staff writer, Chicago Reader; Jonathan Fine, Executive Director, Preservation Chicago, Linda Searl, Chair, Chicago Plan Commission, John Lahey, Chairman and President, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Christopher Robling, Principal, Jayne Thompson and Associates, and, as moderator Edward Lifson, cultural critic and blogger.

Then on Thursday, December 2nd, the Northwestern University Department of Art History kicks off two days on New Research Projects in French Architecture: Percier . Labrouste . Hittorffs  with a keynote lecture, Exhibiting Architecture, by MOMA Chief Curator of Architecture and Design Barry Bergdoll.

Half an hour later on the evening of the 2nd, famed sociologist Richard Sennett, in an event co-sponsored by Urban Habitat Chicago and the Graham Foundation, will be delivering a lecture, Edges: How People Are Separated in Cities and What Can Be Done About It.

On Friday the 3rd, New Research Projects in French Architecture continues and concludes with an all-day symposium on "understanding the nineteenth-century foundation of modern architecture" with participants including Barry Bergdoll, Andreas Beyer, Director, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte (Centre Allemand), Paris; Marc Le Coeur, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Neil Levine, Harvard University; Martin Bressani, McGill University in morning, and an afternoon session, moderated by Jesús Escobar, Northwestern University, with a round table of presenters including Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago; Harry Mallgrave, Illinois Institute of Technology; Katherine Fischer Taylor, University of Chicago; and Alexander Eisenschmidt, University of Illinois at Chicago.  And it's free.

Tuesday December 7th brings Volume 16 of Pecha Kucha Chicago where a dozen of so presenters are get 20 slides for 20 seconds each to "reveal their passions, work and inspirations."  Among those on this month's roster are Kevin Lynch, Jon Langford and the legendary Ken Nordine.

Elsewhere in December, John Vinci and Ward Miller talk about their spectacular new book, The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan at the Glessner House Museum on December 8th.

Igor Marjanovic and Katerina Rüedi Ray discuss and sign copies of their book, Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg's Urban Vision, at a lunchtime lecture at the Chicago Architecture Foundation December 15th. Today, November 22nd, is the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking for the pathbreaking city-within-a-city project.

 Lawrence Okrent talks about The History of Grant Park for Friends of Downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center Thursday, the 2nd.

And on the 1st at 6:00 p.m., at Instituto Cervantes, Belinda Tato of Ecosistema Urbano delivers the third and final lecture in the series Restoring, Regenerating, Rethinking: The Urban Transformation of Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao.

We're just getting started and we've already got two dozen items on the December calendar.  Check them all out here.

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