Housing after Katrina, Restoring St. John Cantius, Lee Bey judges Gingerbread - 3 Great New Events

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Just added to the December calendar:

On Friday, December 10th, to observe Human Rights Day,  marking the date in 1948 when the United Nations issued the first global Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the National Public Housing Museum will be sponsoring a screening at Roosevelt University of the documentary Coming Home: The Dry Storm, about the housing crisis in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

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On Monday the 13th at the Harold L. Washington Library, Brother Joshua Caswell SJC will present Restoring a Landmark: The Story of St. John Cantius  Church, the north side landmark designed in 1893-98 by architect Adolphus Druiding, covering the major interior and exterior restorations that have been undertaken beginning in the 1980's.

Then for a good time for a good cause - the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Unity Temple, on the evening of December 9th, the Unity Temple  Restoration Foundation will be offering up Edible Edifice: Reinterpreting the Classic Gingerbread House, at Room & Board, 55 E. Ohio.

Attendees will be enjoy hot cider, holiday trees from Bleeding Heart Bakery and live music, and be able to review the designer gingerbread houses entered into a competition to be judged by Bleeding Heart's Michelle and Vinny Garcia, Smith+Gill's Jeff Stafford and Michelle Dumont, and architecture critic and Chicago Central Area Committee Executive Director Lee Bey. 

Projects will be judged on six criteria: originality, use of materials, craftsmanship, site design, use of lighting, and that special "je ne sais quoi . . . The works will then be auctioned off to the highest bidders with proceeds benefiting that other convention-defying edifice, Unity Temple.

There are over two dozen events still to come this month.  Check out the complete December Calendar here.

David Shah, Bruegmannx2, National Public Housing Museum lectures - more for the October calendar!

 And the hits just keep coming.  Just added to the October calendar of Chicago Architectural Events:

This coming Monday, October 11, trend forecaster/provocateur David Shah will kick off the School of the Art Institute/AIADO's Mitchell lecture series, with a talk on Design in a Time of Change, 6:00 p.m., in Fullerton Hall.

On Wednesday the 6th (make your reservations by noon today), UIC's Robert Bruegmann will talk about The Rise and Fall of Public Housing: An International Perspective, followed by a tour of the site of the National Public Housing Museum, one of a series of five lecture/tours this month that will feature such people as Little Italy's Peter Pero,  great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells Michelle Duster and City Design Center's Robert Feldman.

On Tuesday, the 26th, Bruegmann is back at a Graham Foundation event held in Harry Weese's dramatic Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist, talking about the new book he's co-authored with Kathleen Murphy Skolnick, The Architecture of Harry Weese.   This first monograph devoted to Weese's work has just been published.  I'm making my way through it now, and it's a worthy successor to Bruegmann's 1997 The Architects and the City: Holabird & Roche of Chicago, 1880-1918.  Along with a recent profile of Weese by Robert Sharoff in Chicago Magazine, it's jump-starting what looks to be a renewed appreciation of one of Chicago's most creative architects.

There are over 60 great events still to come on the October calendar.  Check them all out here.

And speaking of great Chicago architects, while we don't usually list tours - there's just too many of them - I did want mention a one-time only tour that's part of Docomomo North American Tour Day for 2010, Architecture in the Round:  the life and work of Bertrand Goldberg, a bus tour co-sponsored with the Chicago Architecture Foundation, from which it departs at 12:30 p.m. this Saturday, October 9th. The tour takes in four of Goldberg's designs: Marina City, the Hillard Homes, River City, and the endangered Prentice Hospital (just don't try to take pictures of it.) $38 per person; $33 seniors/students; $33 CAF members, 3.0 AIA Continuing Education Credits. Registration and information on-line.

Harboe at Carson's, Neutra discusses Neutra, Studio/Gang at Columbia College - SCB in Abu Dhabi, and much more: the August architectural calendar

It's the 9th of the month - time for the August calendar!

Actually, the first week was less front-loaded than usual, and a lot of Chicago institutions are still on summer hiatis, but there's still a ton of great stuff coming up in August.

The National Public Housing Museum is offering a series of lectures on public housing in both architectural,cultural and social aspects each of the remaining Wednesday morning's in August. On August 12th, Dr Raymond Richard Neutra, son of the famous architecture will lecture on the significance and survival of Neutra's Los Angeles VDL Studio and Residences for AIA Chicago, which is also offering a panel of architects including Walter Eckenhoff and Jackie Koo talking about hotel design throughout the world on Tuesday, the 10th, Christine Caryle discussing her firm's planning work in Abu Dhabi at Solomon Cordwell Buenz on the 11th.

On Thursday the 19th, AIA/Chicago will be offering a tour of the new Columbia College Media Production Center with a representative from the building's architects, Studio/Gang, as a guide. The same afternoon, the Glessner House Museum is offering a tour of the recently restored Louis Sullivan formerly known as Carson Pirie Scott by architect Gunny Harboe.

There's also SEAOI's day-long seminar on the Design of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings o Tuesday, the 24th, when Christopher Miller is also talking about Urban Morphology at APA/Chicago. The Häfele Chicago showroom has a lecture by Robin Whitehurst and Greg Williams of Baily Edward Architecture on the Independence Park Bungalow project on Monday, the 16th, and there's an opening reception and a panel discussion led by Victor Margolin Monday the 30th at the opening of the exhibition Get Inspired! The Swiss Design Award at Crown Hall, IIT.

And that's not all! There are nearly three dozen great events in August. Check them all out here.