A mayoral forum on public housing, Louis Sullivan's Struggle, Alison Fisher on Prentice, Michael J. Golec, Bill Mackey, Elizabeth Francis - it's the January Calendar!

The year may be starting a bit slowly, but there's still nearly three dozen great architecture-related events already lined up on the January calendar.

It starts off with SEAOI's panel discussion on Bridge Failures this Tuesday, the 4th at the Parthenon (on Halsted Street, not the Acropolis.)  On Thursday the 6th, the Graham offers the first of two lectures being given this month in conjunction with their exhibition, Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown this one by Michael J Golec, with another by Bill Mackey on the 27th.  This coming Sunday, the 9th, the Lake Theater in Oak Park with be offering a benefit screening of the documentary Louis Sullivan: The Struggle for American Architecture, with director Mark Richard Smith in attendance for a Q&A.

There's quite a bit of sounding off, with conductor and pianist Yaniv Dinur talking about Music and Architecture: Design, Aesthetic and Form at lunchtime on Wednesday the 12th at CAF, and Carl Giegold of Threshold Acoustics talking about Speech, Hearing, Acoustics and AV in the Learning Environment at AIA Chicago lunchtime on Tuesday, the 18th.  The Art Institute's new assistant curator of architecture Alison Fisher talks about Bertrand Goldberg's endangered Prentice Hospital for Landmarks Illinois' lunchtime Preservation Snapshots lecture, Thursday the 20th at the Cultural Center.  On the evening of the 25th, architect Elizabeth Francis gives a talk at the MCA, while Farr Associates Doug Farr talks about LEED for Neighborhood Development at CAF lunchtime on the 26th, where Neal Samors and Bernard Judge discuss their new book, Lake Shore Drive: Urban America's Most Beautiful Roadway, same time and place, a week earlier on the 12th.

On the 11th,  again at the Cultural Center, the Central Advisory Council of Chicago Public Housing Residents will be holding a mayoral Candidate Forum on Public Housing in Chicago.  I don't know if any of the candidates have confirmed but, shockingly, this is the only forum I'm aware of where anyone's putting the screws to the candidates on the critical issues involving the city's built environment.

As usual, there's more, much, much more.  Check out all the events on the January Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Housing after Katrina, Restoring St. John Cantius, Lee Bey judges Gingerbread - 3 Great New Events

ArchitectureChicago PLUS apologies to those of you who have been experiencing problems viewing our calendar in - if you'll excuse the expression - Internet Explorer.  We believe we've fixed the problem.  If not, let us know.

Just added to the December calendar:

On Friday, December 10th, to observe Human Rights Day,  marking the date in 1948 when the United Nations issued the first global Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the National Public Housing Museum will be sponsoring a screening at Roosevelt University of the documentary Coming Home: The Dry Storm, about the housing crisis in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

click images for larger view

On Monday the 13th at the Harold L. Washington Library, Brother Joshua Caswell SJC will present Restoring a Landmark: The Story of St. John Cantius  Church, the north side landmark designed in 1893-98 by architect Adolphus Druiding, covering the major interior and exterior restorations that have been undertaken beginning in the 1980's.

Then for a good time for a good cause - the restoration of Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic Unity Temple, on the evening of December 9th, the Unity Temple  Restoration Foundation will be offering up Edible Edifice: Reinterpreting the Classic Gingerbread House, at Room & Board, 55 E. Ohio.

Attendees will be enjoy hot cider, holiday trees from Bleeding Heart Bakery and live music, and be able to review the designer gingerbread houses entered into a competition to be judged by Bleeding Heart's Michelle and Vinny Garcia, Smith+Gill's Jeff Stafford and Michelle Dumont, and architecture critic and Chicago Central Area Committee Executive Director Lee Bey. 

Projects will be judged on six criteria: originality, use of materials, craftsmanship, site design, use of lighting, and that special "je ne sais quoi . . . The works will then be auctioned off to the highest bidders with proceeds benefiting that other convention-defying edifice, Unity Temple.

There are over two dozen events still to come this month.  Check out the complete December Calendar here.

Blair Kamin at Friends of Downtown Annual Meeting, Thursday, December 2nd

As if five events for the evening of Thursday, December 2nd - including Richard Sennett, Barry Bergdoll, the story of the Nickerson Mansion, and the unveiling of plans for Northerly Island - weren't enough of a logjam, we've just been reminded of a sixth:  Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin will be the keynote speaker at Friends of Downtown's annual meeting at the Sullivan Center.   If you haven't already, you can check out all the great events on the December architectural calendar 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.

Chicago Debates: The Malling of Chicago, Barry Bergdoll, Percier, Labrouste and Hittorffs, Richard Sennett, Pecha Kucha 16 with Ken Nordine - early notices on the December calendar

Because of the year-end holidays, the December Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events is looking to be intensely front-loaded, so we wanted to give you a heads-up on some great items taking place in the first few days of December.

On Wednesday, December 1st, at Goose Island Wrigleyville, the Chicago Architecture Foundation will be launching a series of Chicago Debates - "leading voices from architecture, design, business and politics as they debate the changing face of Chicago"  with The Malling of Chicago, with a spectacular panel including Ben Joravsky, staff writer, Chicago Reader; Jonathan Fine, Executive Director, Preservation Chicago, Linda Searl, Chair, Chicago Plan Commission, John Lahey, Chairman and President, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Christopher Robling, Principal, Jayne Thompson and Associates, and, as moderator Edward Lifson, cultural critic and blogger.

Then on Thursday, December 2nd, the Northwestern University Department of Art History kicks off two days on New Research Projects in French Architecture: Percier . Labrouste . Hittorffs  with a keynote lecture, Exhibiting Architecture, by MOMA Chief Curator of Architecture and Design Barry Bergdoll.

Half an hour later on the evening of the 2nd, famed sociologist Richard Sennett, in an event co-sponsored by Urban Habitat Chicago and the Graham Foundation, will be delivering a lecture, Edges: How People Are Separated in Cities and What Can Be Done About It.

On Friday the 3rd, New Research Projects in French Architecture continues and concludes with an all-day symposium on "understanding the nineteenth-century foundation of modern architecture" with participants including Barry Bergdoll, Andreas Beyer, Director, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte (Centre Allemand), Paris; Marc Le Coeur, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Neil Levine, Harvard University; Martin Bressani, McGill University in morning, and an afternoon session, moderated by Jesús Escobar, Northwestern University, with a round table of presenters including Robert Bruegmann, University of Illinois at Chicago; Harry Mallgrave, Illinois Institute of Technology; Katherine Fischer Taylor, University of Chicago; and Alexander Eisenschmidt, University of Illinois at Chicago.  And it's free.

Tuesday December 7th brings Volume 16 of Pecha Kucha Chicago where a dozen of so presenters are get 20 slides for 20 seconds each to "reveal their passions, work and inspirations."  Among those on this month's roster are Kevin Lynch, Jon Langford and the legendary Ken Nordine.

Elsewhere in December, John Vinci and Ward Miller talk about their spectacular new book, The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan at the Glessner House Museum on December 8th.

Igor Marjanovic and Katerina Rüedi Ray discuss and sign copies of their book, Marina City: Bertrand Goldberg's Urban Vision, at a lunchtime lecture at the Chicago Architecture Foundation December 15th. Today, November 22nd, is the 50th anniversary of the ground-breaking for the pathbreaking city-within-a-city project.

 Lawrence Okrent talks about The History of Grant Park for Friends of Downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center Thursday, the 2nd.

And on the 1st at 6:00 p.m., at Instituto Cervantes, Belinda Tato of Ecosistema Urbano delivers the third and final lecture in the series Restoring, Regenerating, Rethinking: The Urban Transformation of Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao.

We're just getting started and we've already got two dozen items on the December calendar.  Check them all out here.

Adler & Sullivan at Charnley House, The Fountainhead and John Lautner at the Block, Grant Park plans unveiled, Jarzombek, Woltz and more: new additions to the November calendar,

We've just added some big items to the November calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Tonight, Friday, Evanston's Block Museum screens King Vidor's The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal, part of their series, The American Architect in Focus, which will also include Infinite Space: The Architecture of John Lautner next Thursday, the 18th.

Tomorrow, Saturday, November 13th, at Sullivan and Wright's Charnley-Persky House on north Astor, John Vinci and Ward Miller will be signing copies of their spectacular, must-have book, The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan.  Reserve ahead to make sure there's a copy for you to buy.

The other big event is this coming Wednesday, November 17th's unveiling of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates' concept plans for the Grant Park Renovation Project, which will include the presentation of a large-scale model and images.  I'm taking my mom to see The Lion King that night, so I wont be able to attend, but if any of you do, please let me know where the model's winding up and give me a report of your impressions.

Monday, the 15th, MIT's Mark Jarzombek lectures at the School of Architecture at UIC, and back on Wednesday the 17th, it's another logjam night, with not only Grant Park Renovation, but  ULI Chicago offering up a panel on Real Estate Forecast 2011 at the Hyatt Regency.  That same evening, AIA Chicago and the Consulate General of Sweden Chicago will be presenting two panels on From Brownfield to Urban Oasis, talking about post-industrial plans for Chicago's South Works site.  The panels will include SOM's Phil Enquist, the Chicago Department of Environment's Dave Graham, Gunnar Söderholm, Head of the Environment in the City of Stockholm, and a host of others from both the U.S. and Sweden.

Then on Friday, the 19th, the Harry Chaddick Institute of DePaul will be presenting a panel, Reinventing Community: Branding, Rebranding and Economic Development, moderated by Urbanophile's Aaron Renn, with a keynote by Claudia Sieb giving a national perspective on branding, and Carl Wohlt offering up "cutting edge techniques being used to brand local communities."

I don't think it's really what Renn, Sieb and Wohlt have in mind, but lately in Chicago, branding seems most lately to have devolved into trying to sell off naming rights for everything from L stops to fire hydrants to anyone willing to kick a few bucks into our depleted civic coffers.  Can we get alderman to pay for their own salaries by having GoldenPalace.com tattooed on their own foreheads?  Can we train our pigeons to choreograph themselves in Busby Berkeley-like formations to promote Birdbgone?  And really, why have we let them call it the Viagra Triangle all these years without shaking down Pfizer for some really big bucks?  But I digress.

On Monday, November 22nd, landscape architect Thomas L. Woltz will be lecturing at Crown Hall, IIT. And Wednesday through Friday, the 17th through 19th, the Greenbuild 2010 International Conference and Expo will be taking over McCormick Place

There are over two dozen great events still to come in November.  Get the details on all of them here.

Rethinking Madrid, Barcelona & Bilbao, Eric Owen Moss, Terzo Piano, Decarbonization in the Loop and celebrating The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan - the November calendar fills

We're still not done with the November Calendar of Architectural Events and, even with the holiday, we'rve already got over three dozen great items.  The Instituto Cervantes kicks off a three lecture series Restoring, Regenerating, Rethinking: The Urban Transformation of Madrid, Barcelona, & Bilbao, with a November 18th lecture by Ibon Areso, Bilbao’s strategic evolution. From the industrial to the post-industrial city, to be presented in Spanish with simultaneous English translation. The series is curated by the tireless Iker Gil of MAS Studio, whose Fall issue, Information, of the excellent - and free - periodical, MAS Context is now available for download.

The 18th is turning out to be one of those nightmare scheduling logjams that Chicago is prone to.  All on the same evening, there's a just announced lecture by Eric Own Moss for the Architecture and Design Society of the Art Institute of Chicago, Roger Frechette talking about the PositivEnergy Practice of Smith+Gill architects for AIA Chicago,  landscape architect Nelson Byrd Woltz lecturing on Stewardship and Design in the Urban and Agrian Landscape at Crown Hall, IIT, and architect Dirk Denision and chef Tony Mantuano talking about their new Terzo Piano at the Art Institute's Modern Wing while feeding you samples from the menu.

On Tuesday the 30th, AIA Chicago will celebrate with Ward Miller and John Vinci the publication of one of the most essential and stunning books of the year, The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan.  At AIA Chicago lunchtime on the 9th, Peter Kindel of Smith+Gill will be discussing their firms Decarbonization Plan for the Central Loop.  And on Thanksgiving eve, November 24th,  leading Chicago structural engineers will discuss the tensile and aerodynamic properties of the skeletons of turkeys, both before and after cooking.  Following the discussion, surviving turkeys will get to dress up as pilgrims and shoot randomly at spectators.

Start filling up your dance card: check out all the events we've added to the November calendar here.

Adrian Smith, Venturi and Scott Brown, Victor Margolin, Thomas Jefferson, Columbia College Media Center and Urban China - it's the first week of November events!

Since it's not yet Thanksgiving, it's way too early to expect the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.  However, there are so many great events just this first week, we wanted to bring them to your attention:

On Monday, November 1st at 6:00 p.m., at the Graham, co-curator Martino Stierli will be talking about their new exhibition, Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.  (click images for larger view)

On Tuesday, the 2nd at 6:00 p.m., at Columbus Auditorium of the Art Institute, Victor Margolin will be talking about Design and the Risk of Change.  At CAF's lunchtime lecture at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, the 3rd, John H. Waters will be discussing Thomas Jefferson, Architect of Private and Public America, and at 6:00 p.m. at Crown Hall at IIT, Adrian Smith will be lecturing on Towards the Zero-Energy City.

Thursday, November 4th has Alica Berg talking about Columbia College's new Media Center, designed by Studio/Gang, at 12:15 p.m. at the Cultural Center, for Friends of Downtown, and on Saturday, November 6, 10:00 a.m., to noon - UIC professor Alexander Eisenschmidt will be conducting coffee and conversation after taking participants through the Museum of Contemporary Art's new Urban China: Informal Cities exhibition.

There are already nine events on the calendar for this week, and you can get the details on all of them - plus everything else we've got in the calendar in its nascent state - here.  Or, if you're  really impatient, you can check out the Blueprint's monthly calendar of events 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.

Studio/Gang Architects at CAF today, 2010 Preservation Excellence Awards Tomorrow (and the Calendar is coming . . . promise)

The new season's first Wednesday luncheon lecture, 12:15 p.m. at CAF, 224 S. Michigan, will feature Kara Boyd and John Wolters of Studio/Gang Architects discussing recent projects such as the new Lincoln Park Nature Boardwalk, the renovation of the Shoreland Hotel, and others.  There's also the always popular ARE Study Hall at AIA Chicago,  35 East Wacker, 5:30 - 9:00.

On Thursday at 10:00 a.m., the 2010 Preservation Excellence Awards will be presented in the Claudia Cassidy theatre of the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, followed at 11:15 by the regular monthly meeting of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks in the Garland Room on the Cultural Center's 1st floor.  Also at the Cultural Center at 12:15 p.m., this time in the Millennium Room, Friends of Downtown will be sponsoring a talk by Rachel Weber of UIC on TIFs and Chicago Development.

All of this is to say that the September calendar isn't quite ready for publication, but we've already got three dozen items - everything from Pecha Kucha 15 on the 7th, to talks by architects Peter Bohlin and Jacques Ferrier, AIA/Chicago's Professional Development Conference, the Architecture for Change Summit on affordable housing at UIC, and Preservation Chicago's fall fundraiser at the recently restored Historic Sears Power House.  Check back Thursday (or maybe Friday) for the full roster of events.

Harboe at Carson's, Neutra discusses Neutra, Studio/Gang at Columbia College - SCB in Abu Dhabi, and much more: the August architectural calendar

It's the 9th of the month - time for the August calendar!

Actually, the first week was less front-loaded than usual, and a lot of Chicago institutions are still on summer hiatis, but there's still a ton of great stuff coming up in August.

The National Public Housing Museum is offering a series of lectures on public housing in both architectural,cultural and social aspects each of the remaining Wednesday morning's in August. On August 12th, Dr Raymond Richard Neutra, son of the famous architecture will lecture on the significance and survival of Neutra's Los Angeles VDL Studio and Residences for AIA Chicago, which is also offering a panel of architects including Walter Eckenhoff and Jackie Koo talking about hotel design throughout the world on Tuesday, the 10th, Christine Caryle discussing her firm's planning work in Abu Dhabi at Solomon Cordwell Buenz on the 11th.

On Thursday the 19th, AIA/Chicago will be offering a tour of the new Columbia College Media Production Center with a representative from the building's architects, Studio/Gang, as a guide. The same afternoon, the Glessner House Museum is offering a tour of the recently restored Louis Sullivan formerly known as Carson Pirie Scott by architect Gunny Harboe.

There's also SEAOI's day-long seminar on the Design of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings o Tuesday, the 24th, when Christopher Miller is also talking about Urban Morphology at APA/Chicago. The Häfele Chicago showroom has a lecture by Robin Whitehurst and Greg Williams of Baily Edward Architecture on the Independence Park Bungalow project on Monday, the 16th, and there's an opening reception and a panel discussion led by Victor Margolin Monday the 30th at the opening of the exhibition Get Inspired! The Swiss Design Award at Crown Hall, IIT.

And that's not all! There are nearly three dozen great events in August. Check them all out here.