Direct from Venice! Provocations for Chicago's Urban Future and Spontaneous Interventions, plus still more events for May!

Yeah, I know we're in the last three days of the month, but we're still adding great stuff to the May Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Today (Wednesday the 29th),  it's all about movement as DePaul's Chaddick Institute will be presenting a brown bag lunch with Jim Giblin, on A Railroad for the 21st Century:  The Illiana Rail

Bypass Concept.  5:30 p.m. at the Cultural Center, GOOD Chicago Studio is sponsoring a panel, Building the Future of Bus Rapid Transit in Chicago, with Ron Burke, Joseph Iacobucci, Steve Schlickman and Christopher Ziermann, with RedEye's CTA Reporter Tracy Swartz as moderator. Over at the Cliff Dwellers at 6:00 p.m., Friends of Downtown will be giving out their Best of Downtown 2012 Awards.  At 12:15 p.m. the CAF lecture on the Adaptive Reuse of the Viceroy Hotel, with Hume An and Jeff Bone, will also be streamed live here.

We should also mention that there are two new exhibitions open on either side of Randolph.  In the Expo 72 Gallery at - logically enough -  72 East Randolph, there's City Works: Provocations for Chicago's Urban Future, a collaborative effort by five teams whose members including David

Brown, Alexander Eisenschmidt, Studio/Gang Architects, Stanley Tigerman, and UrbanLab's Sarah Dunn and Martin Felsen, which . . .

. . . re-envisions a series of urban environments that are typical for Chicago in order to examine alternatives to the way architecture engages the city . . . [a collaborative effort] determined to find potentials for spatial, material, programmatic, and organization invention within the city.  Curated by Eisenschmidt, the installation involves large urban models of proposals for Chicago as well as an encompassing panorama drawing of historical visionary projects for the city.  Over the duration of the exhibition, the models will travel throughout the gallery, visit the different parts of the city's visionary history, and, finally, come together to create a new collective city.

 Meanwhile, over in the Michigan Avenue galleries of the Chicago Cultural Center, Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good features 84 urban interventions . . .

. . . initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists and everyday citizens that bring positive change to neighborhoods and cities in addition to a pop-up installation in Millennium Park. Chicago is the first destination of the installation, which served as the U.S. representation at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2012). The Chicago installation will recreate the lively exhibition design of

pull-down banners, created by Brooklyn design studio Freecell and Berkeley-based communication design firm M-A-D. The contents of the exhibition have been updated to include more recent and more local projects, more than a dozen from Chicago.

Organized by Cathy Lang Ho on behalf of the Institute for Urban Design, is devoted to the growing movement of architects, designers, artists, and everyday citizens acting on their own initiative to bring improvements to the urban realm, creating new opportunities and amenities for the public. The exhibition received over 178,000 visitors in Venice, and earned a Special Mention from the Golden Lion jury, the first time the United States has been honored in the history of the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Spontaneous Interventions will include a pop-up “outdoor living room” in Millennium Park, designed by Chicago-based MAS Studio, led by architect Iker Gil. The space will serve as an outpost for the exhibition and a venue for exhibition-related programs, including talks, panels, tours, workshops and more. The space will feature a colorful canopy and seating made of salvaged lumber by local artist/woodworker John Preus of Dilettante Studios.

Both of the shows are up for viewing now, and will have their official opening receptions Friday, the same evening the Graham Foundation has a reception with guests the ubiquitous Mr. Tigerman and Board President Hamza Walker to announce the Graham's 2013 Grants to Individuals.

S.I., as we initiates call it, will also be sponsoring an ambitious range of talks, workshops, curator walks, walking tours and symposia in conjunction with exhibition.  There are almost a dozen events this coming Saturday and Sunday, June 1st and 2nd, including but not limited to the participation of Teddy Cruz, Roberta Feldman, Michael Sorkin, James Rojas, Iker Gil, Robyn Paprocki, Douglas Burnham, Nathan John, John Preus, Stephen Zacks, Anne Guiney and others.  It's all on our June Calendar, coming soon, but if you can't wait, you can also check out all the details here.

back to Wright's Roots, forward to Chicago Unseen City - two new exhibitions open Friday

click images for larger view

We may be heading into summer, but that hasn't stopped two exhibitions from making their way into the city this week, both with official Friday, June 22nd openings.

Over at the Expo 72 Gallery at 72 E. Randolph, Chicago's Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson is curating Wright's Roots, which explores the formative years of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  When we think of Frank Lloyd Wright, we think of the larger-than-life persona he created for himself as the self-proclaimed "greatest architect on earth".  Wright's Roots looks beneath the veneer . . .

Every icon has their start somewhere. Frank Lloyd Wright’s reputation as a brilliant architect and outsized personality came from complex roots – many going back to his early years in Chicago.

Since his death in 1959, the story of Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and career has become legendary – and sometimes drifted into myth. Many of today’s perspectives came from Wright’s own accounts of a professional career that spanned three quarters of a century. His path to becoming a colorful public figure synonymous with modern architecture was filled with many little-known detours and diversions, but all contributed to his lasting fame and reputation.

Using seldom-seen illustrations and original artifacts to tell the story of his complex personal journey during the often-overlooked early period of his life and career, Wright’s Roots explores Wright’s formative years. 

That rendering at the top of this post?  Not a Charles Atwood special, but a youthful indiscretion by a young FLW, the man said to have selected the names of composers included on the Auditorium's proscenium.

While the official opening is Friday, I'm hearing you may want to stop by next week to see the show in its full glory.  Wright's Roots runs through September 30th.

Meanwhile, over at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 South Michigan,  there's another opening on Friday the 22nd.  The Unseen City: Designs for A Future Chicago, four Chicago academic institutions presents their visions of the future for city life.  Participating are Archeworks, UIC and IIT, in partnership with the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat and Adrian Smith + Gordin Gill Architects, rethinking such locations as Cermak Road and Garfield Boulevard.

We've just added a new event for June.  On Monday, June 25th, in the Lower Core of Crown Hall at IIT, Rajnish Wattas will lecture on Chandigarh's Identity Crises: Garden City to Urban Juggernaut?  On Thursday June 28th, there'll be an all-day symposium Trees as a Legacy in Design and Development, at the Chicago Botanic Garden.  There are still over a dozen great items to come on the June 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.