Lambert and Arets, Plensa and Kreloff, Enquist, Bannos, Achilles, Sarah Morris and More - it's the November Calendar! (endangered species?)

You may have noticed, the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events was a bit late this month.  Like eight days late.   Can you imagine how many people were writing me asking where it was?

Would you believe . . . one?

I'm coming to the conclusion that the monthly calendar is an idea whose time has gone.  Readership is not large.  Throughout all the days of  a given month, there are fewer cumulative pageviews for the calendar than for a single average post.  It often seems the only people reading the calendar are the those who are on it.  Since I'm now back to a regular 9 to 5 job, my side hours are limited, and I'm thinking they might be better spent on other projects.  So, as with the printed version of The Onion but a whole less funnier, December may see the final version of the monthly architectural calendar.   If you have any thoughts on the matter, pass 'em on

On a cheerier note, as always, there's no small number of great events still to come in November.  This Thursday, Phyllis Lambert will be in conversation with Wiel Arets at Crown Hall and signing copies of her book, Building Seagram.  Also this week, Carlo Caldini is at the Graham on Tuesday, and Jon B. DeVries and D. Bradford Hunt will discuss their new book, Planning Chicago: How Did We Get Here? and why planners always seem to incorporate an initial somewhere in their name, noontime at AIA Chicago on Wednesday, the same afternoon the Chicago Architecture Foundation has their annual Patron of the Year luncheon at the Palmer House, and SOM's Phil Enquist  discusses the Great Cities, Great Lakes, Great Basin initiative lunchtime at CAF, where it's the subject of a just-opened exhibition of the same name..  DeVries and Hunt will also be putting in a appearance at Open Books on Institute Place Monday the 18th.

More? How about Pamela Bannos talking about 1836 through the Chicago Fire at the MCA on Saturday the 16th, where filmmaker Sarah Morris has a preview screening and talk on Tuesday, the 19th, the same day David Wilts of Arup discusses The Smarter Building:  What It is - and Why Bother noontime at AIA/Chicago, and Rolf Achilles talks about his book, The Chicago School of Architecture- Building the Modern City, 1880-1910, at the Glessner House Museum..  The Chicago Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art gives out its First Annual Acanthus Awards at the Elks National Memorial, also on Saturday the 16th.

On Wednesday the 20th Jaume Plensa is in conversation with Reed

Kroloff at MCA, and on Thursday the 21st, Jean Guarino discusses Construction, Demolition and the Remaking of LaSalle Street for Friends of Downtown at the Cultural Center, and designer Lloyd Natof is at Unity Temple in Oak Park.

Catch it while you can.  Check out all the great items on the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Mars realigns Wright, Achilles on the Glessner bowl, Caughman, Greene, Spirit of Design - still more for May!

A whole bunch of editions to the May 2013 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

99% Invisible's Roman Mars, whose April appearance at Frank Lloyd Wrights Unity Temple was rained out, has designs 4 dignity has its' big Spirit of Design fundraiser at Ignite Glass Studio.
rescheduled for May 9th, the same day

On Tuesday, May 14th, Rolf Achilles lectures on The Glessners'Kutani ware bowl and Chicago's take on Japonisme at the Glesser House Museum, while on Thursday the 16th, James Caughman talks about Furniture, Fashion and Music in the 18th Century at the Baker Knapp and Tubbs Chicago Showroom, and on Wednesday the 9th, Jeff Greene of EverGreene Architectural Arts talks about Preservation at the SAIC.

We're up to nearly 50 great items this month.  Check out all the who, what and when's on the May 2013 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

New Music for Teshigahara's Gaudi, plus Zardini, Arets, Lorado Taft, Edward Dart - more for March!

Yes, we're still adding to the March Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

If you missed 60 Minutes' segment last night on Antonio Gaudi and Barcelona's Sagrada Familia, you can check it out in the above video.  The cathedral has certainly come a long way from when I was there over ten years ago - the wonders of substituting concrete for stone, I guess.  And on the Gaudi front, here's something really cool. 

Showing Hiroshi's Teshigahara's mesmerizing documentary Antonio Gaudi has become an annual Christmas holiday staple at the Gene Siskel, but now Access Contemporary Music is giving the film a new spin, with a one-time-only showing at Architectural Artifacts on March 19th accompanied by a live performance of a new score by Chicago composers.  More details here.

The week starts off Monday the 11th with a face-off between Canadian Centre for Architecture ExecDir Mirko Zarini at UIC, and new IIT Dean of Architecture Wiel Arets at Unity Temple.

On Tuesday, the 12th, SEAOI's March dinner meeting at the Parthenon (again, the restaurant, not the bombed-out wreck in Athens) has structural engineer John R. Hillman talking about the striking new 35th Pedestrian Bridge.  That same evening, Lynn Allyn Young talks about her new book on Lorado Taft, Beautiful Dreamer, at the Glessner House Museum.

Wednesday the 13th, Richard Becker, Lisa Skolnick and Susan Benjamin discuss Edward Dart's Ancel House at CAF lunchtime, while in Crown Hall that evening, it's the 127th birthday party for Mies van der Rohe, which also will mark the investiture of Wiel Arets as the new Dean of the architecture school Mies founded.  No more kicking back in a Barcelona chair and smoking a chair, alas, but there will be cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

Thursday the 14th,  again at IIT, but at the Auditorium at the Koolhaas Campus Center, Kenneth Frampton stops by to talk about The Past and Future Prospects for Architectural Education, while at the Richard Driehaus Museum, Rolf Achilles discusses Great Midwestern Panes from such Chicago artists as Healy and Millet and Max Guler.

That's just a few of the two events this week, and nearly thirty items still to come on the March Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Today- 200 Years of Sitting: The Chair - learn with Achilles, buy at Wright

click images for larger view

Tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Room and Board, 55 East Ohio, in an event co-sponsored by the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation, SAIC professor Rolf Achilles will talk up Chair, an overview of the last 200 years in devices for sitting, from Rietveld,  to Wright, to Eames to Starck. "No other design creation better expresses our ever-changing mood."  The event is free; no ticket required.

And if that's not enough, head over to Wright on Hubbard for a noon auction today, (Thursday, September 27th) , Living Contemporary,  "a unique mix of art and design from the 20th and 21st centuries", including, from 1980. the A-Chair, the first furniture designed by architect Steven Holl.

In addition to art from the likes of Robert Motherwell and Ed Paschke, there's a wealth of design items going up for auction, including these Ron Arad rocking chairs . . .

Paolo Buffa armchairs from the Hotel Bristol,  Merano . . .

Gaetano Pesce's  dining set . .  .

Marcel Wanders' Knotted Rouge . . . 

and Pedro Friedeberg's Hand Foot Chair . . .

Sorry for the late notice, but probably if you're a buyer, you're already there.

Also today, there's Tristan Sterk at AIA Chicago, and Les Albums des Jeunes Architectes et Paysagistes, with Freaks Freearchitects and A + R Salles at Alliance Française de Chicago.  Check it all out - and a number of other events still to come -  on the September calendar here.