Model Chicago Engulfed by Water at CAF, plus AIC, Maggie Daley Park: Thursday Updates Edition

Smokefall production still, courtesy Goodman Theatre

As we continue to work on the November calendar, and just in general take a breather (including taking in Noah Haidle's Smokefall, with the great Mike Nussbaum, at the Goodman Thursday night - closing Sunday), we turn to our indefatigable correspondent Bob Johnson to bring you this update, which begins at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, where its striking model of Chicago . . .

photograph: Lynn Becker

. . . now well into its fifth year, has seen even its tallest tower eclipsed by twin walls of water . . .

photograph: Bob Johnson

 . . .  that form the backdrop for CAF's new exhibition, Great Lakes, Great Cities, Great Basin: Bold Ideas for the Great Basin Park . . .

You know your neighborhood, but do you know your basin? Through this exhibition, the urban designers at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP issue a call to arms for all of us to think about our water, our boundaries and our identity. The Great Cities, Great Lakes, Great Basin exhibition depicts the Great Basin as one region defined by the watershed rather than political boundaries. Visit this exhibition and learn the impact you make not only in your immediate neighborhood or city, but in the basin in which you live.

Now open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

photograph: Bob Johnson

Meanwhile, Bob provides us this aerial shot of the progress at the $55 million Maggie Daley Park, which the Sun-Times' Tina Sfondeles reported  this week has reached the halfway mark towards a soft opening next fall, and a final completion in 2015.  Viewer drivable webcams here.

And that crane you see in the picture hovering over the Modern Wing of the Art Institute?  That was for the installation of the latest installation at the sculpture garden, Ugo Rondinone's we run through a desert on burning feet, all of us are glowing our faces look twisted, which runs through April 20 of next year, by which time the Picasso's and Matisse's should be back from Ft. Worth and the now closed Modern Wing third floor re-opened..

Now, back to the calendar.  Or maybe just a nap.

Last Days for Inside Studio Gang and The Lost Vanguard

In case you haven't made it yet, this weekend brings your last chance to see two essential exhibitions.

The Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922-32 runs only through Friday and Saturday, the 22nd and 23rd at the Graham, 11 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days.  The exhibition documents “the work of modernist architects in the Soviet Union in the years following the 1917 revolution and the period of instability during the subsequent civil war.”  At Madlener House, 4 West Burton Place.

 Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects closes at the Art Institute on Sunday.  It's “the first exhibition in the world devoted to the Chicago-based group headed by MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang.”  It includes models, renderings, product samples, and lots of rope, creating five different and ingenious ‘rooms’ placed throughout the large gallery.  In the Modern Wing, 159 East Monroe.

And you know it's got to be  good because, to paraphrase something Elaine May used to say, “that woman is a doctor.’  On Friday, the School of the Art Institute announced that this years graduation ceremonies on May 18th at Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavilion will include awarding Jeanne Gang an honorary doctorate for a career “seemingly without limits.  In the process [she's made] great civic and cultural contributions that reflect on our interdisciplinary work an scholarship at SAIC.”  Also receiving doctorates will be artist Joe Zucker and actor, playwright and scholar Anna Deavere Smith, who will deliver the commencement address.