Dimming the Sharpness of Vision: Fereshteh Toosi Tuesday evening at Access Living

Archeworks is sponsoring what looks to be a fascinating lecture by Montreal's Fereshteh Toosi, Dimming the Sharpness of Vision, 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, July 24th at Access Living, 115 West Chicago, 4th floor community room.  RSVP here.

What has inspired architects, artists, and designers to integrate odor, touch, sound, and flavor in their work? Grounding her inquiry in an understanding of ocularcentricity in Western thought, Fereshteh will present a basic overview of sensory studies -- an interdisciplinary field that begins with an anthropology of the senses as it intersects with aesthetics and phenomenology. The audience will learn about Fereshteh's projects and other productions that emphasize multisensory experience: surround sound, "smell-o-vision", immersive 3D, floating isolation tanks, the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, "flavor tripping" parties, Snoezelen sensory therapy for autism, and business workshops that take place in total darkness.

Puts me in mind of Ron Krueck's idea for a Sensescape museum for Northerly Island.

There's so much more to how architecture affects us than what we perceive through the single sense of sight.  End Ocular Oppression!  (I'm thinking of having T-shirts made.)

North Grant Park at Block 37, Archeworks Mid-Year Design, McCurry's Distillations, Urculo and Bruder - still more for January

Still more for January Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events:

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The latest revisions for North Grant Park, a/k/a/ Daley Bicentennial Plaza, will be on display for the next week in the lower level pedway of Block 37.  Today, Wednesday, January 25th, buy a soft pretzel and hear the Park District and landscape architect Michael van Valkenburgh present where the still evolving plans are now.

For tomorrow, Thursday the 26th, we wrote yesterday about the lecture by Thomas Heatherwick at IIT.  Also Thursday, 6:00 p.m. at Access Living, Archeworks presents it's Mid-Year Design Review, including the projects Sustainable Food Through Design Innovation, and the Cermak Creative Industries District.

And a reminder that today, Wednesday, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m., there's a reception at Poliform showroom for Margaret McCurry and her new book Distillations: The Architecture of Margaret McCurry, and at 6:00 p.m. at the Graham, there's a lecture by Madrid-based architect Luis Urculo.  The month closes out Friday the 27th with Will Bruder at Crown Hall.

Check it out:  There's still over a dozen great events to come on the January 2012 Chicago Architecture Calendar.

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.

Wong and Gates Monday, Ron Klemencic Tuesday - fragments of the April Calendar

Rumors of the appearance of the April Calendar of Chicago Cultural Events persist, even as we wish to apologize to those of you who may have wanted to hear architect Thomas Leeser, whose firm just completed a warmly received expansion of the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, when he spoke at UIC last Friday, but missed it because we didn't report it.

Here are two events for today, Monday, April 4th:

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At the intriguing start time of 5:50 p.m., in the lower core of Crown Hall at IIT, Ernest Wong of the Site Design Group, Ltd., whose work includes the striking and new Mary Bartelme park at Adams and Sangamon, pictured above, will lecture. Information here.

At 6:00 p.m. at Archeworks, 625 North Kingsbury, there will be a lecture by Loeb Fellow Theaster Gates "will talk about the relationship between his art practice, myth making and urban stewardship and how slippery these relationships are. He will engage the audience and discuss the challenges of the design industry with implications toward pedagogy and emerging practices. By the end of the night, he will create a new design firm with members of the audience." Followed by in-fighting over job titles. RSVP requested.  Information here.

Then on Tuesday, April 5th, [NOTE:  this event is now SOLD OUT] at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 South Michigan, the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois will offer up How’d They Do That?!, a talk by Ron Klemencic, President of Magnusson Klemencic Associates, whose work includes such modern marvels as the Rem Koolhaas/Joshua Prince-Ramus Seattle Public Library, shown above, and Studio/Gang's Aqua.  Klemencic will "present a fast-paced, visual tour through the structural design of some of the more interesting and challenging structures in the world today. The advances in design and construction technologies, materials, and communication capabilities that make these projects possible will be highlighted." The evening begins with a cocktail reception beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed by the lecture at 6:30 and a QandA at 7:30. It's free, but registration is required. Information here.

Archeworks Fall Final Review tonight includes therapeutic garden for Washington Park

Students of Archeworks, Chicago's alternative design school, will be discussing the current status of two research projects tonight, Tuesday, December 14th, including the Mobile Food Collective, and Washington Park Grows, a collaboration with the Chicago Botanic Garden and Rehabilitation Instittute to create a therapeutic garden in Washington Park.  It begins at 6:00 at Archeworks, 625 N. Kingsbury at Ontario.  The event is free, but space is limited.  RSVP and info here.

Richard Sennett, Antonio Gaudi, Barry Bergdohl, The Malling of Chicago, Pecha Kucha 16, Northerly Island and more - the December Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events

It was the week before Christmas, and all through the city, the only thing stirring was the Gene Siskel Film Center's holiday tradition - Hiroshi Teshigahara's hypnotic documentary, Antonio Gaudi, whose masterpiece, Barcelona's Sagrada Família, begins to enter the home stretch to completion eight decades after its architect's death.

After the 24th, everything shuts down for the year-end holidays.  Before the 24th, there's still nearly three dozen great events for you to check out on the December Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

There's still several great events coming up this Tuesday, the 30th, including on Empathy, Storytelling, &   Prototyping: 3 stories + 1 conversation at Archeworks and John Vinci and Ward Miller talking about their new book, The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan at AIA/Chicago.  If you can't make to AIA/Chicago, the authors will also be at the Glessner House Museum on December 8th.

December starts off with a bang on Wednesday, with the first of the Chicago Architecture Foundation's Chicago Debates: The Malling of Chicago,  with a panel of heavyweights including Linda Searl, John Lahey, the Reader's Ben Joravsky, Chris Robling, Jonathan Fine and Edward Lifson.

That same evening, Belinda Tato of Ecosistema Urbano lectures of Urban Social Design in Madrid at the Institute Cervantes.  On Thursday, December 2nd the proposed plans for Northerly Island will be unveiled at CAF by the Chicago Park District and Studio/Gang Architects, while MOMA's Barry Bergdoll will be lecturing on New Research Projects in French Architecture at the Block Museum in Evanston, the kick-off to a day-long conference on the same topic with another blue ribbon panel on Friday, the 3rd.

On Wednesday the 8th, another day-long event, the Global Metro Summit: How Metros are Delivering the Next Economy: Lessons from the U.S. and Abroad, takes place at UIC, with Saskia Sassen, Ricky Burdett, the Brookings' Strobe Talcott, and Mayor Richard M. Daley among the scheduled participants. Renowned sociologist Richard Sennett makes not one, but two December appearances, at the Graham on the 2nd,  and at SAIC's Columbus Auditorium on the 6th.

Katerina Rüedi Ray and Igor Marjanovic will be discussing their book, Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg's Urban Vision, at a CAF lunchtime lecture on the 15th, where Larry Bennett will be talking about his new book, The Third city: Chicago and American Urbanism and Why Chicago Isn't and Is Important on the 1st.

Did I mention Pecha Kucha Volume 16, at Martyrs on the 7th with a roster of at least ten presenters, including. Jacqueline Edelberg, Hal Chaffee and the legendary Ken Nordine?

And there's more.  Experience the joy of discovery for yourself.  Check out all the great events on the December calendar here.

Dan Pitera at Archeworks on the 21st, Peter Bohlin tonight, new Songs about Buildings and Moods Saturday

A new addition to the September calendar, architect Dan Pitera of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center will lecture on More People, More Programs, More Geographies to kick off Archeworks fall lecture series, September 21 at 6:00.  That same evening, architect Jacques Ferrier will lecture at the Alliance Alliance Française of Chicago.

Also some reminders: Peter Bohlin lectures tonight, September 16th, on The Nature of Circumstance at the Renaissance Chicago for AIA/Chicago, while authors Stuart Cohen and Susan Benjamin talk about their book, The Great Houses of Chicago, at the Driehaus Museum.  And this Saturday, September 18th, from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m,  Accessible Contemporary Music presents Songs about Buildings and Moods, where new works by six Chicago composers will be played in the works that inspired them, including the Burnham and Root's Monadnock, Holabird and Roche's Marquette, the Bertoia Sculpture, the Tiffany Dome at the Cultural Center, and Studio/Gang's Aqua.  Fair warning:I'm scheduled to be one of the tour guides for this event.

There are still dozen of great events to go on the September calendar.  Check them all out here.

Heading to Venice in August, Mobile Food Collective stops in Logan Square Sunday

At end of August, it'll be part of the exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion of this years Venice Biennale, but throughout the day tomorrow, Sunday, July 18th, the Mobile Food Collective will be bringing its Moveable Feast to three different locations in Logan Square.  A realization of a student work project at Archeworks, it's described as being about:

. . .  addressing the social and environmental impact of food, and working to find an innovative way to bring people together around food, through a variety of avenues.  The Archeworks Team has designed a fleet of mobile structures intended to act as both connector and instigator within local food cultures, to encourage a return to heritage, ownership, exchange, and connection—to make food personal again.
The MFC (Mobile Food Collective)  is many things: an education/exchange platform for planting, growing and cooking; demonstrations and distribution of seeds, soil, compost, and produce; a space activator within a community event; or the centerpiece of a harvest dinner.

Physically, the MFC is conceived as a fleet of mobile structures. The larger mobile unit houses a harvest table and flexible storage cabinets that double as seats. At a smaller scale, there are bikes and trailers, equipped to carry the modular storage cabinets. The mobility of the project allows this dialogue to be constant and moveable—we can go where we are needed, bringing different things to different audiences, connecting different groups across a city, or around the world.

So stop by Sunday at one of the locations listed in the image you see above.  The project is still raising funds towards "completing the final steelwork details, fabricating the skin material, and building out our fleet of bikes and trailers."   You can find more information, and make a donation, here.