FIELD UIC faculty exhibition, opens Tonight

 There's an opening reception tonight, Wednesday, November 14th for FIELD . . .

The UIC School of Architecture is pleased to present FIELD, the first in a series of semiannual collaborative faculty exhibitions. This iteration cuts through the concept of “field” within architecture in two ways: one half of the show re-frames six recent faculty projects with the the term “field” in mind, and the second half presents a temporary installation on the School’s Bridge conceived, designed, and executed by this same group of faculty. The resulting strains of dialogue—at times subtle, at others overt—re-invigorate the term, and in doing so, make new claims on its productive architectural capacities.

Participants include Kelly Bair, David Brown, Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer, Clare Lyster. Andrew Moddrell, and Xavier Vendrell.  The reception begins at 6:00 p.m. and the exhibition runs through December 14th in the Second Flood Ribbon Gallery, in the UIC Arts and Architecture Building, 845 West Harrison.  The school is also sponsoring lectures by Ciro Najle of General Design Bureau on Friday the 16th and An Te Liu of the University of Toronto, Monday, November 19.

Farnsworth Alfresco with Schulze, Windhorst and Jacobs; Williams and Tsien on (and at) their new Logan Center for the Arts, John Van Bergen month - more for October

click images for larger view

Chicago has so many great architectural tours, we don't even try to list them in our October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events, but there's an exceptional tour this Saturday for which, at this writing, there's still tickets available.  Farnsworth House and Docomomo Chicago Midwest is offering up Farnsworth House Alfresco this Saturday, October 6th.

And, yes, there is a picnic lunch included, but the real draw is the participation of the Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, co-authors of the highly anticipated New and Revised Edition of Mies van der Rohe, A Critical Biography, due out next month; plus Tom Jacobs of Krueck+Sexton, the project architect for recent restoration work on the historic home.  The $100 ticket price also includes bus transportation to and from CAF downtown, with a drive yourself ticketing also available. The actual event runs from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m, with bus pickup at CAF at 10:30 a.m., returning at 4:30 p.m.

Read our own piece recounting the history of Mies's masterwork, and the battle to save it, Glass House Struck by Gavel.

As a run-up to this years Open House Chicago, we've also added a Friday, October 12th lecture, Beware the Stairs Are Always Moving: a conversation with architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, 6:00 p.m. in the Performance Hall of the new Williams/Tsien designed Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus.  It's part of Logan Launch Fest, a three day festival celebrating the building's official opening, over 40 free events, from music, to film, to poetry, theater and more, showcasing the dizzying array of performance spaces incorporated in the building.

We should also mentioned a new exhibition at the Highland Park, which has declared October John van Bergen Month.  Events include an exhibition of photographs and artifacts of the work of the famed Prairie School architect at the Highland Park Historical Society, with a panel discussion on Prairie Architecture at the Highland Park Public Library on October 14th, and a house walk October 21st.

Among the over a dozen items this week, new IIT Dean of Architecture Wiel Arets lectures at Crown Hall Wednesday at 6:00 p.m., Related Companies discuss the resuscitation of the stalled Waterview Tower as 111 West Wacker, Thursday lunchtime for Friends of Downtown at the Cultural Center, the same day Commission of Chicago Landmarks fails to discuss the subject of Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital still again, Seaside Award-winning architect Scott Merrill lectures at the Driehaus Museum, and Chris Ware talks about and signs copies of his new book, Building Stories, at Unity Temple.  And if you can't make it to Farnsworth on Saturday, you can head over to the Art Institute, where Clare Lyster will be leading an "Archi-Salon" on the topic architecture’s external influences, such as transportation networks, within the exhibition space of the spectacular new show, Building:  Inside Studio Gang Architects.

Check out all seventy-plus great items on the October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Lyster's SYSTEMscapes, School of Art Institute's annual show (reception tonight) - new exhibitions for June

New exhibitions for June:

The Design Show - there's an opening reception today, June 13th, from 6:00 to 8:00 for a series of exhibitions sponsored by the School of the Art Institute.  (More information here.)

Where is Where - showcases design from the SAIC's Departments of Architecture, Interior, and Designed Objects (AIADO) and Fashion, featuring work from 50 graduate students.

The works explore the unseen aspects of our society—many of which have been forgotten or overlooked—by reinhabiting space, challenging perceptions of interiority, and redefining values.

It's in the Sullivan Galleries in the former Carson Pirie Scott Building, 33 North State, 7th floor, and runs through June 25th.

Loaded -  also on view currently at the Sullivan Galleries features the work of fifteen emerging designs that was recently on display at Milan's Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

The provocative objects presented in Loaded explore the history, physicality, and currency of two catalytic materials: iron and sugar. In addition to the 13 unique objects (lighting, tableware, and jewelry) created for the exhibit, two of the projects—one in sugar, the other in iron—have been produced in multiples specifically for the show. Elements of the exhibition design also engage in this investigation, resulting in custom cast-iron display fixtures and sculptural sugar props.

And if that's not enough, the Sullivan Galleries will also be displaying the work of finalists of Delta Faucet's  second-annual Designers of Tomorrow Contest, in which students " were challenged with finding inspiration in Delta’s unique and innovative products — such as the In2ition shower  —  to create an original design that utilizes Delta products in a home environment other than a bath or kitchen."

Clare Lyster: SYSTEMscapes/Drawing Distribution Flow

  - opened last Friday, June 10th, at showPODS, in the 1800 block of south Halsted in the Chicago Arts District, where it's on view 24/7 through July 31st.    It's described as an exhibition . . .

of large-format maps of post-Fordist delivery systems, including Netflix, Facebook, Fed Ex, Amazon.com, Ryan Air and U-Tube.  The maps address the fluidity of our culture by indexing the geo-spatial effects of the time-space networks that infiltrate our daily lives. They uncover new opportunities for architectural design in an age in which space is increasingly mediated by infrastructural systems and communication networks. The maps are conceived by Clare Lyster as part of her ongoing research on architecture’s fall-out with emerging logistical networks, what Manuel Castells calls “the space of flows”. 

More information here.