Stacked Box Gateway: Pelli Clarke Pelli's new DePaul University Theatre School

 

DePaul University is celebrating the opening of its new Theatre School building by architects Pelli Clarke Pelli. Blair Kamin offers a full-up review in today's Chicago Tribune.

[Inexplicably, although the print version of Blair's review includes three black-and-white photographs, the web version has only a single shot of the black box theater interior.  Apparently, the Trib still hasn't figured out the basic concept that photos draw readers to a website, and once you've gone through the cost of shooting them, posting them is essentially free.  The web version of Kamin's review also carries a different address for the building than the one on the school's own website.]
Update: a gallery of striking photographs from Tribune staff photographer Antonio Perez was added  this afternoon

central staircase

In any event, we thought we'd supplement Kamin's thorough review with some shots we took yesterday.  You can find a lot more interior shots and renderings on the Pelli Clarke Peilli website, and see Jeff Goldberg's shots on the DePaul website here. Through November 24th, the DePaul Art Museum, on Fullerton at the L, has an exhibition, Designing for Performance: Cesar Pelli at DePaul University.

At the corner of Fullerton and Racine, the new $73 million, 165,000-square-foot structure provides a new visual gateway to the campus.  Along with steel exoskeleton of Antunovich Architects' 2006 Loft-Right dorms, now known as 1237 West, the articulated massing and the facades of white Turkish  Limra limestone marks a major break with the university's traditional affection for vaguely Prairie School brick buildings.  Cannon Design, Schuler Shook and Kirkegaard Associates contributed to the design.  Full list of credits here.

 

 

 

 

The Theatre School building finds a visual strong counterpoint in two industrial loft buildings across the street.  One is now the Lincoln Park Library; the other is a U-Haul facility.

The Theatre School's name tastefully inscribed in the limestone of the pristine blank white wall of the black box theater finds its traditional down-and-dirty Chicago doppelganger in the reflection of the painted U-Haul painted signage of the water tower reflected in the DePaul theatre's front glazed facade.

The Graham Dishes the Dirt, Edward Mitchell, Jerszy Seymour, John Edel, CNU's Convenience, Landmarks Goes on Strike - throw in the Parthenon and you've got this week's Chicago architectural calendar

So, yes, we're trying to set a record.  The March 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events is still not complete -  but it's getting close.

This week, we've got EMA's (and Yale's) Edward Mitchell today, Monday the 12th at UIC, Redesigning Logan Square at AIA Chicago and John Edel at Access Living for Archeworks, tomorrow, Tuesday, the 12th.

On Wednesday, the 13th, the Metropolitan Planning Council has a lunchtime session on Making Fun and Functional Transit Centers, while over at CAF it's museum director Louise Lincoln and Antonovich Associates architect Jeffry P. Mason serving up the new DePaul Art Museum on the menu.

Thursday the 14th is logjam day, with CNU Illinois offering up an all-day conference with three separate workshops on the subject of Redefining Convenience, Landmarks Illinois goes on Strike! with a lunchtime lecture at the Cultural Center on the topic of Chicago's early commercial bowling and billiard halls (please: no wagering), while at 6:00 p.m. at the Art Institute, Barbara Barletta ponders The Parthenon--How Innovative Is It?, and also at 6:00 p.m. at the Columbus Auditorium of the School of the Art Institute, there's an appearance by Berlin-based designer and conceptual artist Jerszy Seymour.

On Friday, Carlos Leite's lecture on Sao Paolo Sustainability Indicators has been cancelled, but author Megan Born will be talking about and signing copies of her new book, Dirt at the Graham Foundation.  No, it's not a consideration of the journalistic proclivities of Rupert Murdoch, but "a selection of works that share dirty attitudes: essays, interviews, excavations, and projects that view dirt not as filth but as a medium, a metaphor, a material, a process, a design tool, a narrative, a system."

We're still filling it out, but there are already nearly three dozen events to check out on the March 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Save Prentice Outreach, Design on the Edge, architects. Doing other things, Margaret Iannelli at the new DePaul Art Museum - News Notes from all Over

via Blair Kamin comes a report in Architect Magazine that Donna Robertson is resigning as Dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, effective May 31, 2012.

click images or larger view

Preservation Chicago is holding a Save Prentice Outreach Day, Saturday, September 17th.

We're hitting the streets on September 17th to Save Prentice!    Join Preservation Chicago and other members of the Save Prentice Coalition for a Save Prentice Outreach Day on Saturday, September 17, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Michigan Avenue between Adams and Monroe streets.  We will be passing out flyers and urging  citizens to take action to save Prentice.

RSVP by Thursday, September 15th or call us at 773 334 8800.  The first 25 attendees to arrive will receive a free "SAVE PRENTICE!" t-shirt.

Chicago Women in Architecture is looking for financial sponsors for a new exhibition it is curating, architects. Doing Other Things, or a.Dot that will showcase the artwork of more than 50 architects and artists and is scheduled to open October 6 at Ross Barney Architects, 10 West Hubbard.   More information can be found on-line, and the deadline for printing is September 23rd.

In addition to the two major exhibitions, Bertrand Goldberg: Architecture of Invention, and Inside Marina City: A Project by Iker Gil and E.G. Larsson, both opening at the Art Institute this Saturday the 17th, next Friday, September 23rd, the Chicago Architecture Foundation will be opening Design on the Edge: Chicago Architects Reimagine Neighborhoods, a collaboration with Stanley Tigerman and architects Darryl Crosby, Sarah Dunn and Martin Felsen, Jeanne Gang, the late Douglas Garofalo and Xavier Vendrell, Patricia Saldana Natke, John Ronan, and SOM's Ross Wimer.

And Saturday, September 17th also sees the opening of the Antunovich Associates' new DePaul Art Museum at 935 West Fullerton, just next to the Fullerton "L" stop, with an exhibition Re:Chicago, which surveys "the careers and artistic reputations of Chicago artists over more than a century," from today's Nick Cave to yesterday's Margaret Iannelli, the talented - and deeply troubled - graphic designer whose work was overshadowed by her more famous husband.

The Grant Park Conservancy  will be holding a meeting Thursday, September 15th, at 6:30 at Daley Bicentennial Fieldhouse, 337 East Randolph, on the East Monroe Garage reconstruction project that will close the Fieldhouse during the day beginning on the 16th.  Also to be discussed are repairs to Grant Park after this year's Lollapalooza.