Amazing Open House Chicago 2012 Looking for a Thousand Good Women (And Men)

Corpus Christi Church (click images for larger view)

The full schedule of 150 locations has been published for the 2012 edition of Open House Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation's remarkable two day point of entry to . . .

. . . over 150 of the city’s great places and spaces.  Explore repurposed mansions, hidden rooms, sacred spaces, private clubs, iconic theatres, hotels, community murals and more—all for free.

As you can imagine, such an event takes a lot of planning, and a lot of help.  Specifically, the CAF has put out the call for volunteers.  Shifts are four hours, either/and Saturday and Sunday, October 13th and 14th.  You must be at least 18, and you must wear clothes.

In addition to the satisfaction of a job well-done for a great event, being a volunteer has its benefits:

• Priority access at all OHC sites for you and a companion
• 50% off a CAF membership
• Member discount at CAF shop for the week following OHC
• OHC T-shirt and lanyard souvenirs
• Two free CAF walking tour passes

Get all the details and sign up on-line here.

The site list is remarkable, from downtown to all across the city, with a large roster of "hidden gems" not usually open to the general public.  To cite just one example, you can visit the 41st observation deck of the 1962 Shaw, Metz designed United of America/Unitrin/Kemper Building - open for the first time in nearly 40 years - and, unlike the guys in the photograph above, you can actually enjoy it from the inside.

You can also visit the offices of such firms as Goettsch Partners, Holabird and Root, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, Murphy/Jahn, Perkins+Will, SOM, Thornton Tomasetti, VOA, Wheeler Kearns, and Wright Heerema.  You can see Dankmar Adler's last commission, Isaiah Temple, now  Ebeneezer Missionary Baptist Church, get inside the Germania Club, the Powhatan Apartments, Apollo's 2000 (the former Marshall Square Theater), Jens Jensen's Park Castle, and the historic Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation.  You can visit the Lohan Associates designed Police Headquarters, and go directly to (Cook County) Jail.

Ogden School, Nagle/Hartray Architecture

And lest you think the architecture of today is being slighted, you can see Jeanne Gang's Kam Liu Building in Chinatown and Columbia College Media Production Center , Helmut Jahn's State Street Village at IIT, Farr Associates, Christy Webber Landscapes, Nagle Hartray's Ogden School, Williams and Tsien's Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at U of C, Krueck and Sexton's Spertus Institute, Rem Koolhaas's Campus Center at IIT, and John Ronan's Poetry Foundation and South Shore International College Prep, to name just a few.

Poetry Foundation, John Ronan Architects

This is an absolutely fantastic event, and you can become a part of it here.

John Ronan's Poetry Foundation wins 2012 AIA Honor Award

For someone who's been dead now for over two years, Ruth Lilly is having a really good year.  Two buildings that she made possible with her bequests have just been announced as winners of the American Institute of Architects' Honor Awards for 2012.

The first is Guy Nordenson & Associates' Ruth Lilly Visitors Pavilion at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  The second is the new home for her beloved Poetry Foundation designed by Chicago architect John Ronan.

We're still working on our piece on the Poetry Foundation (see the Hugo post below for an explanation of my bizarre methods for avoiding work), but you can see and hear John Ronan discussing the project here.  Part one below.

And you can see our photoessay on the construction of the building here and here.

Two more for June - Alternative Career Paths, Growth of Carsharing

Never too late, apparently, to be adding events to the June calendar.

RSVP by today for the Illinois Chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architect's Wednesday evening panel, Alternative Career Paths in Architecture, while Thursday noontime at Depaul, the Harry Chaddick Institute will be hosting a discussion on The Growth of Carsharing: A Review of the Public Benefits and Tax Burden of an Expanding Transportation Sector.

Elsewhere this week, Margaret Cederoth of Parsons Brinckerhoff and Christopher Drew from Adrian Smith+Gorden Gill Architecture will be discussing the lessons of Masdar City for APA Chicago on Tuesday, the same evening Sara Beardsley of AS+GG will be discussing their Chicago Central DeCarbonization Plan at AIA Chicago.  And this Saturday and Sunday will offer an Open House for the Poetry Foundation's new home designed by John Ronan.

There's still a dozen and half great events to come, so check out the June 2011 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Zinc Garden Grows at Ronan's Poetry Foundation

 click images for larger view

As we move inexorably closer to the June 25-26th Open House, the new building designed by architect John Ronan for the Poetry Foundation races towards completion.   The black zinc screen is largely in place along Superior . . .

although the elevation along Clark Street still awaits its facing.

Most recently, the trees for the entrance courtyard have been put in place, part of the landscape design by Reed Hilderbrand . . .

Right now they're more large, low-level shrubs, but as the building ages, we'll get to watch them rise to their full height.

A talk by Ronan about his building during the Open House is already wait-listed, but you can watch videos where he discusses his design here.

Prentice, Prentice, Prentice - plus Ronan's Poetry Foundation, Mau, Calthorpe, Enquist, Vergara: already at 60 items for the June 2011 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events

Wasn't it St. Augustine who once said, "Lord, give me my summer break.  Just not yet."

It was so hot on Memorial Day today, you could be forgiven for thinking everything was shutting down for summer.  But you'd be wrong.

I'm sure we haven't gotten everything yet, but there's already 60 items on the June 2011 Calendar of Chicago Architectural events.

And if there's a theme, it's Prentice, Prentice, Prentice.  The battle to save Bertrand Goldberg should-be-landmarked Prentice Hospital from Northwestern destroying it for a vacant lot is at full press, with a benefit, Bowling for Prentice, on Monday the 6th at 10 Pin at Goldberg's Marina City, a CAF debate, Re-Use It or Lose It: Prentice and Chicago's Modernist Architecture, on the 14th at Dick's Last Resort, also at Marina City, and Landmarks Illinois President James Peters talking about  what could be, The Rebirth of Prentice, at a CAF lunchtime lecture on the 29th.

The month starts out, however, with two pillars of Chicago's architectural legacy.  First up, Ward Miller and John Vinci will discuss their indispensable book, The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan, first at CAF lunchtime this Wednesday, the 1st, and then again on Saturday the 4th at the University Center on State as part of this years Printer's Row Lit Fest.  Wednesday evening, there's a the kick-off of an 18 month celebration of the 125th anniversary of Henry Hobson Richardson's Glessner House, for which ground was broken on that day in 1886.

On Thursday the 2nd, Bernie Judge and Neal Samors will discuss their new book on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive at the Cultural Center for Friends of Downtown, while at Crown Hall at IIT, there'll be an opening reception of the summer's art exhibition, featuring the work of Jeff Carter.  Over at the Driehaus Museum, AKA Nickerson Mansion, Elizabeth Meredith Dowling will be discussing her book American Classicist: The Architecture of  Phillip Trammel Shutze, while on Saturday the 4th, Anna Wolfson will be talking about Natural Building at the Chicago Center for Green Technology.

On the 26th, John Ronan will give a waitlisted talk on the occassion of the open house for the new home he designed for the Poetry Foundation. On Tuesday, the 7th, there's edition 18 of Pecha Kucha at Martyrs', while on Saturday the 11th, Structural Engineers Association of Illinois will be unveiling the winners of its 2011 Structural Engineering Awards at their annual banquet. On Wednesday, the 15th, Archeworks will be holding its Design Riot: Rise for Good Design benefit at Haymarket Brewery.

What else have we got?  Let's see: Walter Frazier, Peter Calthorpe, Ellen Markevich, Bruce Mau, Armin Linke, Palladio, John van Bergen, wind, Marcus Schmickler, Jonathan Olivares, Phil Enquist and Beijing's CBD expansion,  Margaret Cederoth and Christopher Drew in Masdar, Chicago decarbonization, Carolyn Armenta Davis and the Black Diaspora of architects, Chicago lighthouses, schoolhouses, McCormick Place Redux, Camilo Jose Vergara, and much, much more.

Check out the sixty great events on the June 2011 Chicago Architectural Calendar here.