Life and Work of Benjamin Marshall Today, December calendar tomorrow (we hope)

Maintaining a time-honored tradition, we're a little late with the December calendar, which we expect to have up tomorrow.

So here's a heads-up that at 12:15 p.m., today, December 1st, in the Millennium Room of the Chicago Cultural Center, Friends of Downtown is sponsoring a talk by Stephen Monz on the life and work of architect Benjamin Marshall, whose work includes such buildings as the Drake and Blackstone hotels, and 1550 North State Parkway.

Thursday is also the day, 12:45 p.m., in the Council Chambers of City Hall, 121 N. LaSalle, for the monthly meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, which continues to be nowhere to be found in the battle to save Bertrand Goldberg's gravely endangered Prentice Hospital, but has an agenda item proposing landmark designation for the Art Deco DuSable High School at 49th and Wabash.  No landmarks report on the structure has been posted yet, but there's an informative piece on the building by Lee Bey here.

Pecha Kucha, Abalos +Sentkiewicz, Pennoyer, Grospierre, Benjamin Marshall, Ed Uhlir, McKim,Mead, David Woodhouse, Nieto and Sobejano, and Mies's 125th - check out the March calendar! (now with more exclamation points!!!!)

If you can find something that interests you on the March Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events, you must be dead.

The month begins with a bang this Tuesday the 1st , with Pecha Kucha Volume 17, and a range of presenters from activist and education reformer Bill Ayers, Studio Gang, world architecture mapper Chris Botham, architect/design Ania Jaworska and many more.  As always, the month is heavily front-loaded, and it also includes SEAOI's dinner program on the Wacker Drive Reconstruction, and a panel discussion at the Graham featuring Jeanne Gang and John Petersen marking the publication of the new book, The Power of Pro Bono. On Wednesday, the 2nd, Jonathan Fine of Preservation Chicago unveils of the Chicago 7 Most Endangered Historic Places of 2011 at CAF,  and Iñaki Abalos + Renata Sentkiewicz lecture at UIC.  On Thursday, the 3rd, Peter Pennoyer discusses Re-Imaging Architectural Traditions for ICA  at Driehaus Museum/Nickerson Mansion, while photographer Nicolas Grospierre speaks at the opening reception for the Graham's new exhibition of his work, One Thousand Doors, No Exit, and Whitney French, Director of Farnsworth House, discusses Mies van der Rohes iconic work at the Oak Park Public Library.  On Friday, the 4th, The Benjamin Marshall Society has a fundraising gala at the Drake celebrating the Centennial Anniversary of East Lake Shore Drive.

A documentary on the 100 women architects and designers who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright screens at CAF on the 9th, where Dhiru Thadani talks about his book, The Language of Towns & Cities on the 10th and the recent work of Wheeler Kearns is subject on Wednesday, the 23rd.  Ed Uhlir discusses Millennium Park's Future in the Post Daley-Era at the Great Cities Institute on the Thursday, the 10th, the same day David Woodhouse lectures on Pavilions in the Parks: Selected New Buildings at the Oak Park Public Library.  Mosette Frederick discusses her new book, Triumvirate: MicKim, Mead & White, Art, Architecture, Scandal and Class in America's Gilded Age, at the Driehaus.  AIA/Chicago offers a tour of Florian Architects' new Hyde Park Bank Loan Processing Center on Tuesday, the 17th, the same day Rolf Achilles and Christoph Lichtenfield discuss the 1933-34 Armco-Ferro house for Landmarks Illinois at the Chicago Cultural Center, while the same group holds its annual Legendary Landmarks gala at the Ritz-Carlton on the 31st.  Also  on the 31st, Barbara Geiger, author of the upcoming Low-Key Genius, a biography of landscape designer O.C. Simonds, has a lecture at the Second Presbyterian church. A three-day Structures for Inclusion conference brings together activists, designers, funders and policy makers at SAIC on the 25th through the 27th.

Mies's 125th birthday is celebrated at his Crown Hall at IIT on Monday, the 28th, and on the 30th, a lecture by architects Fuensanta Nieto & Enrique Sobejano marks the opening of a new exhibition, Young Architects of Spain, at the Instituto Cervantes.

And did I mention this is just a sampling of what's coming up in March?  We're already at over 50 great events.  Check out the complete March calendar here.

Felsen and Solomon, Sou Fujimoto, Benjamin Marshall, Rapson in Hyde Park, Rain Screens and Paderewski at the Glessner - 6 Great events just added for February

See, we told you we weren't finished.  We've just added six great new events to the February Chicago Architectural Calendar.

IIT kicks off its 2011 lecture series with Workshopping Chicago: A Conversation with Martin Felsen and Jonathan Solomon, Monday, February 7th at Crown Hall at 6:00 p.m.  The following Tuesday, February 15th, again at Crown Hall at 6:00 p.m., Sou Fujimoto, of Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo  Shinjuku, this years Morgenstern Visiting Chair, will lecture on the overview of his work, Primitive Future.

On Sunday, February 13th, docent and lecturer Steven Monz will present an illustrated talk, Benjamin Marshall, Architect, at the Northbrook Public Library.  The event leads up to a March 4th gala at the Drake Hotel to benefit the Benjamin Marshall Society, a fundraiser for the society's efforts to catalog Marshall's works and organize  an exhibition of them. 

Moving ahead about a  half century in architectural history, The Hyde Park Historical Society, at its annual dinner February 26th at the Quadrangle Club, will considering Preserving History in the Digital Age, with m.c. Jay Mulberry and featured speaker, the Trib's Ron Grossman.  This year's  Marian and Leon Depres Preservation Award will be presented to Leon and Rian Walker for the historic rehabilitation of Ralph Rapson's Willard Gidwitz House on south Woodlawn.

On Thursday, February 10th, Häfele’s Chicago showroom will be sponsoring a seminar on Rain Screen Wall Systems,  and on Thursday, February 17th, the Glessner House Museum will feature a talk by Victoria Granacki on Ignacy Jan Paderewski - Artist, Statesman, Humanitarian: The Chicago Connection.  Paderewski was one of many prominent musicians who gave concerts in the Glessner's music room.

There was over three dozen great events still to come in February.  Check them all out here.