Today: Landmarks 2011 Preservation Excellence Awards, Okrent's Chicago from the Sky

As usual, we're working to complete the September calendar (and it's packed), with the month really starting after the Labor Day holiday.

Two Thursday events day, however, kick off the month.  Today at 10:00 a.m., at the Sidney Yates Room at the Cultural Center, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks will hold the Awards Ceremony for its 2011 Preservation Excellence Awards, with the honorees including both a book, The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan; an exhibition, Louis Sullivan's Idea, and such renovation projects as the White Castle #16 on Cermak, Jens Jensen's 300 West Adams, the McCormick Double House on Rush, among others.  The usual monthly meeting of the commission, Prentice still not included, takes place at 12:45 in City Hall chambers.

Also at the Cultural Center, at 12:15 in the Millennium Room, Friends of Downtown's September session will feature urban planning consultant and photographer Lawrence Okrent discussing and showing images from his book, Chicago From the Sky: A Region Transformed.

Last Weeks for Must-See Exhibition, Louis Sullivan's Idea

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Okay, you've had almost a year - it opened last June - so if you miss the best architectural exhibition I've seen in ages, you've got no one to blame but yourself.  One final warning:  The extraordinary Louis Sullivan's Idea, at the Chicago Cultural Center, closes Tuesday, May 2nd.

An inspired collaboration between City of Chicago Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson and graphic artist Chris Ware, it offers an eloquent selection of artifacts and photographs,  a strong and convincing viewpoint, and a compelling story.  Ware makes full use of the double-height galleries with large photographs that give you a clear idea of Sullivan's work both in scale and detail. 

And the story Tim Samuelson recounts is a true epic, from the dismissal of the early work of Sullivan and his Jewish partner Dankmar Adler by Chicago's first architect, John Van Osdel as "architecture run crazy.  It's an experiment in Jewishness like we have never seen before," to the crucial influence on Sullivan of the free-thinking, now almost forgotten John Edelmann, foreman of William LeBaron Jenney's office when Sullivan came to work there, who "regarded human beings as inseparable, integral parts of the natural order," and whose image was captured by Sullivan in the sketch you see above.   It carries Sullivan through to his greatest triumphs, and to his troubled final years, when his indomitable spirit carried him through abject poverty and rapidly declining health to produce his last two gifts to architecture, the books The Autobiography of an Idea, and A System of Architectural Ornament.

This fall there will be the highly anticipated exhibition of the work of Bertrand Goldberg at the Art Institute, and it has its worked cut for it in meeting the raised bar that Louis Sullivan's Idea presents.  You can see more images of the exhibition and my original report, including a video of Tim Samuelson talking about the show here, but really, Louis Sullivan's Idea is like a great building; it's not meant to be read about, but to be seen and experienced.

Between now and May 2nd, the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph, is open every day of the week, Monday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m, Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 6; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.  Enter on Randolph, walk up the staircase winding around the outdoor garden, go through the doors on the 2nd floor landing and turn to your right, and enter into the life and thought of one of history's greatest architects.

New - Free Louis Sullivan Tours with Sam Guard
And yes, you actually get awarded for your procrastination, starting Monday, April 25th, construction engineer, historian and story-teller par excellance Sam Guard will be offering special three-hour tours (no cracks about the SS Minnow, please) that begin at the Cultural Center and then spill into the streets of Chicago to encounter the real thing, Adler & Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott store, the Gage building and ending up at the Auditorium.

Guard is scheduling the tours, all beginning at 1:00 p.m.,  for Monday 4/25, Wednesday 4/27,  Friday, 4/29, Saturday 4/30, and Sunday, 5/1. "These are free of charge, only your full attention is required."  Space, however, is limited, so rsvp to Mr. Guard via email (samguard@sbcglobal.net) to reserve your place.

Last week for Looking After Louis Sullivan, plus a fish tricycle - exhibitions return to Repeat

We've put back the listing of current exhibitions and moved it to the Repeat Calendar.  Here's a quick overview.

This is the last week to catch the Art Institute's exhibition, Looking after Louis Sullivan: Photographs, Drawings and Fragments, centered on the photographs of Adler & Sullivan's

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architecture that range from striking to stunning.  Included is work from Aaron Siskind and the iconic Richard Nickel, but what blew me away was the work of John Szarkowski, which had a way of moving the architecture past the realm of abstraction to capture the intersection of the buildings and the passage of day-to-day life through and around them. Sunday, December 12th is the last day for this show, and it's definitely worth catching.

The good news is that its companion show, Tim Samuelson and Chris Ware's Louis Sullivan's Idea, at the Chicago Cultural Center, has actually been extended, through May

2nd of next year.  But don't wait.  As I've written before, it's a don't-miss-it show, beautifully designed and mounted, an epic journey of the life and work of one of America's greatest architects.  I've heard one visitor comment they found the layout confusing, but it really is pretty chronological: the earliest years as you enter, and at the far end, the final ones, ending on a very sad and diminished note - the last designs of a facade, a stove mat and a Christmas card, the final days in a tiny room at the Warner Hotel, even a pack of the bargain brand Home Run cigarettes that a friend would buy Sullivan when the architect didn't have the money to get them himself.  It's a downer, for sure, but then to exit you have to retrace your steps, past all the brilliant designs from the peak of his career, and you leave not disheartened by how it ended but exhilarated by Sullivan's stunning achievements and indomitable spirit.

Elsewhere, the MCA has Urban China: Informal Cities, an idea-packed retrospective of China's only publication devoted to the issues of urbanism, and the Chicago Tourism Center Gallery on Randolph across the Cultural Center has History Coming Home, revealing "public policies, oral histories, and artifacts from public housing from Chicago to Boston and New Orleans to Sacramento . . . including a 1950's-style public housing apartment that visitors can walk through."

The above drawing, a "Design for a child's tricycle" by R.G. Martelet, really hasn't anything to do with the ArchiTech Gallery's current show, The House:

Drawings for Residential Architecture, but it's so redolent of a holiday spirit where the gift giving transcends consumerism to the realm of actual delight that I wanted to pass it on.  (It can be yours for $250.00, and there are other drawings of Martelet's vehicle designs from that price up to $1,200).   Running through December 25, The House features drawings, blueprints and sketches from designers Barry Byrne and Alfonso Iannelli, D.H. Burnham & Co.,  Richard Neutra, Frank Gehry and many others. 

At the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the popular Chicago Model City, featuring a spectacular model of Chicago's center city, continues,  with a second exhibition, Neighborhoods Go Green! Scaling up Sustainability on display in the Lecture Hall.

Opening this week: Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design at the Art Institution, which "presents more than 30 projects that span from architecture and furniture to multimedia and conceptual design from an international group of architects and designers . . . Not always intended as ends in themselves, these multidisciplinary practices are often experiments that motivate reflection on the values, mores, and practices often overlooked in society."

Check out the full December calendar - now with Exhibitions! - here.

September 3rd is Louis Sullivan's birthday - born in 1856 - his creativity remains as fresh as today

On the occasion of Louis Sulivan's 154th birthday, we're republishing an extended post from early this summer . . .

This summer's must-see exhibition: Louis Sullivan's Idea

The last time Chicago recognized architect Louis Sullivan, in 2006 on the 150th anniversary of his birth, we celebrated by burning down three of his buildings.  This year, we're making amends.

Almost all of the early attention has gone to the Art Institute's fine new exhibition, Looking After Louis Sullivan, featuring photographs of Sullivan's work by John Szarkowski, Aaron Siskind and Richard Nickel along with architectural fragments and drawings by Sullivan, himself.  It runs through December 12th.

The main event, however, is over at the Chicago Cultural Center: the long-awaited exhibition, Louis Sullivan's Idea.

 Curated by Chicago Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson and designed by graphic artist Chris Ware, this is a spectacular show that makes full use of the two-story height of the Cultural Center's Chicago Rooms to create an incredibly eloquent overview of Sullivan's life, work and thought.  Samuelson and Ware fill the spaces with massive prints of historic photographs, cleaned up to an incredible sharpness that lets you see the buildings down to their finest detail.  You're no longer the passive observer looking down on structures reduced to sedate framed portraits.  You're standing on the street looking up at Sullivan's incredible creations.  The pictures often exceed your frame of vision, so its almost as if you're within the interiors.

The exhibition draws on the full force of Samuelson's exhaustive scholarship - and an exceptionally rich collection of artifacts, from ornament, to elevator grills, to metal plates designed to be placed under stoves, and a sample of  carbon filament lighting  - to capture the passion and emotion of Sullivan's life and work.

When I checked out the exhibition early in the morning on opening day last Saturday, I turned the corner and came across Tim Samuelson, himself, sitting at the window sorting out the various captions, which were still to be hung despite the fact that he and Chris Ware had been working until 2:00 a.m. earlier that morning to finish things up.  And, along with one other very lucky visitor, I got a personal tour.  In the following video excerpts, improvised with my usual complete innocence of technique on my iPod, Samuelson talks a bit about Louis Sullivan's Idea.

Tim doesn't like to force ideas on anyone.  He'd rather just let people discover on their own.  Towards that end, he said he was almost tempted to leave the captions off the walls.  By now, those captions are probably up, but you can choose to ignore them.  Last Saturday, there were things still to be installed - most notably, a large-scale model of the Chicago Stock Exchange Building so, like Groucho, I'll be going back to see what develops.

I expect to be writing a lot more about Sullivan and the exhibitions, but make no mistake:  Louis Sullivan's Idea is a phenomenal, not-to-be missed show.  It runs through November 28th, but my advice is don't wait.  It's a true Chicago epic.