Chicago's Picasso, 10 Most Endangered, Year End Shows at UIC, IIT, Shanghai Tower - it's the May Calendar!

It's that whole flowers-after-the rain thing.  Even with things shutting down for the Memorial Day weekend, there's still over 40 items on the May Calendar of Chicago Architectural events.

It begins on Wednesday the 1st at the Art Institute, with a panel on Building Public Art and Public Spaces: The Chicago Picasso and its Legacy, featuring Stephanie D'Alessandro, Julie Burros, Fred C.T. Lo, Richard F. Tomlinson, Mark Sexton, Dan Peterman and curator Alison Fisher as moderator.

Preserving the Past/Making it New is this month's theme for the lunchtime lectures at CAF, with Preservation Chicago's Jonathan Fine talking about this year's Seven Most Threatened Buildings on the 1st, Susan Rabe on Milwaukee's St. Josaphat on the 8th, Landmarks Illinois' Lisa DiChiera discussing their 2013 list of Ten Most Endangered Historic Places, set to be unveiled this Tuesday,  Zurich Esposito talking about AIA/Chicago's Small Firm/Small Project Award winners on the 22nd, and Hume An and Jeff Bone discussing the rehab of the landmark Viceroy Hotel into the Harvest Common Apartments.

Also at the Art Institute, Jodi Magness lectures on Ancient Synagogues in the Land of Israel on Saturday, the 4th, while on the 9th there's a lecturer tour of the institution's own Art and Architecture from 1893 to today.

AIA/Chicago is offering a tour of SCB's Klarchek Information Commons at Loyola on Tuesday, the 7th, the same day SEAOI's May dinner meeting will hear presentations from the finalists for its annual Excellence in Structural Engineer Awards.

Christopher Kopp discusses Bus Rapid Transit in Curitiba, Brazil on Thursday, the 9th, the same day that at AIA/Chicago, ZPD+A's James Damato and David Keller of the Camp Douglas Restoration Foundation will discuss efforts to create a memorial on the South Side site where thousands of Confederate prisoners died during the Civil War, and David Hartt and Karthik Pandian are in conversation with Hamza Walker at the Graham.

I'm afraid we missed the opening the SAIC student show in April, but the UIC School of Architecture opens its Year End Show on Saturday the 4th, and IIT College of Architecture has its Open House and Annual Exhibition of Student Work on Thursday, the 10th.

On Wednesday, the 15th, Carl Smith discusses his new book City Water, City Life at the Newberry, while film-title designer Karin Fong of Imaginary Forces is at Fullerton Hall for the Architecture and Design Society of the Art Institute.  This month's Landmarks Illinois Preservation Snapshots lecture, Thursday the 16th at the Cultural Center, features Nick Kalogeresis, Jean Guarino and Douglas E. Gilbert talking about The Architecture of River Forest at lunchtime, while in the evening at the Driehaus, Dr. Susan R. Braden discusses The Architecture of Leisure: The Florida Coast Resorts of Henry Flagler and Henry Plant.

And on Wednesday the 22nd, CTBUH is sponsoring a panel at CAF  on the Shanghai Tower, with Dennis Poon, Grant Uhlir and Christian Vol Holten.

I'm sure I'm leaving off stuff I'll be adding later, but even now, we've got over 40 great items, so check out all the details onThe May Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.