Rojos at UIC Tonight, plus Nair, Shaw, Atomic West and Democracy and the Built Environment - still more for February!

You might think that at this point, we were just waiting for March and spring, and that February was pretty much finished.  You'd be wrong.  This is one active week on the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Today, Monday the 25th, the School of Architecture of UIC kicks off its spring lecture series with Luis Rojo of Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos of Madrid.  

On Tuesday, the 26th, the Chicago Loop Alliance has its 2013 Annual Meeting, and superstar structural engineer Dr. Shankar Nair lectures of Skyscrapers-Past, Present and Future at CAF for the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois, while down at the Koolhaas Campus Center at IIT, Peter Onuf and Marshall Brown will deliver the Benjamin Franklin Lecture: Democracy and the Built Environment.

Wednesday, the 27th, Terry McDonnell talks about engineering the (Sears) Willis Tower Skydeck lunchtime at CAF, while over at the Driehaus Museum, a/k/a/ Nickerson Mansion, Stuart Cohen will discuss The Architecture of Howard Van Doren Shaw: Reimaging the Traditional House.

It all wraps up on Thursday, the 28th, with Navigating Change, an all-day conference of the Midwest Ecological Landscaping Association, a Friends of the Parks lecture on Walter Netsch's Legacy, Robert Chattel talking about the The Atomic Wild Wild West at SAIC, and Fritz Haeg discussing Domestic Integrities at the Graham.

To give you a small preview, March begins with a bang on the 1st with the barnstorming new dean Wiel Arets at the College of Architecture at IIT stopping by Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park with A Wonderful World.

More on March later.  For now, there are nearly two dozen great items still to come this month.  Check them all out on the February calendar of Chicago Architectural Events

Enquist at IIT, Rojo at UIC, Chattel at SAIC - still more for February!

Seriously, is it ever too late to be adding items to the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events?

The architecture schools at both IIT and UIC have announced their Spring lecture series.  IIT begins at Crown Hall this Wednesday, February 20th, with SOM planning guru Phil Enquist talking about The Century of Cities, while over at UIC on Monday the 25th, there's a lecture by Luis Rojo of Rojo/Fernandez-Shaw arquitectos of Madrid.  And over at SAIC, preservation consultant Robert Chattel talks about The Atomic Wild Wild West on Thursday, the 28th.  On Saturday, the 23rd, the Hyde Park Historical Society will award this year's Marian and Leon Depres Preservation Awards at their annual dinner, with Chicago Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson as featured speaker.

This coming week is loaded with great stuff, from Martino Gamper at the Art Institute's Fullerton Auditorium for SAIC on Monday, the 18th, and a special panel discussion: Food! - Design for Social Change at CAF the evening of Tuesday of February 19th, including but not limited to John Cary, John Edel, Robin Elmslie Osler and Fritz Haeg, who also lectures at the Graham on the 28th.

On Wednesday, the 20th, Tom Jacobs of Krueck and Sexton talks about Glass Engineering in Architecture at CAF lunchtime, while on Thursday the 21st, Gensler's Elva Rubio discusses the Ghost Facade at 618 S. Michigan for Landmarks Illinois at the Cultural Center.  Thursday evening is also the last curator's gallery talk by Karen Kice for the Art Institute's exhibition Building: Inside Studio Architects, which closes on the 24th.  Then on Saturday, the 23rd, CAF has Family Studio Saturday; Building and Testing, a National Engineers Week event for teens.

And there's a lot more.  Check out the nearly three dozen great items still to come on the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Lohan on Mies, Burns on what's under Block 37, plus Architecture and Emotion fuse in extraordinary I Am Cuba

This week, on the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events . . . 

click images for larger view

Tomorrow, Tuesday the 12th, begins with the Chicago ACE Mentor Program Lunch, and ends at the Block Museum in Evanston with Dirk Lohan talking about his grandfather's Mies van der Rohe's Legacy and the Chicago Skyline.  Wednesday, the 13th, lunchtime at CAF, Joe Burns of Thorton Tomasetti will provide A Look Under Chicago's Block 37, including structure, foundations, and the unfinished CTA superstation, while in the evening Arup's Chris Luebkeman lectures on Design for the New Normal in the Next Decade for AIA Chicago.  The Structural Illinois Engineers of Illinois has a day-long seminar on Design of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings at the UBS Tower on Thursday.

There are still dozen of arresting items to come on the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Capturing Architecture as it's Lived:  I Am Cuba

Meanwhile, over at the Gene Siskel Film Center, Tuesday the 12th at 6:00 p.m., is your last chance to see one of the most remarkable films ever made, Mikhail Kalatozov's I Am Cuba, which transcends its intentions as a propaganda film that made it a flop in both Cuba and the U.S.S.R during its initial 1964 release. 

First of all, I Am Cuba is a time capsule that captures Cuba at the cross point between the decadence of the mob-run luxury resorts under dictator Fulgencio Batista and the evolution into a vassal state of the Soviet Union, the period of hope that saw the creation of a native revolutionary architecture in the never-finished National Arts School, and the descent into the imposed degradation of now crumbling Soviet-style pre-fab housing towers.

It's all captured in stunning, hyper-expressive black-and-white cinematography by Sergey Urusevsky, including two continuous-shot sequences that put even Orson Welles' opening of Touch of Evil to shame.  The result is one of the most profound explorations of a built environment that you will ever encounter, culminating in this amazing sequence in which the camera - in one take - moves down, through, up, in and over the streets and buildings of Havana as it follows the funeral procession of a martyr through city streets.  It is the most amazing intersection of architecture, movement and human emotion as you're ever likely to see.

Next week, a true cornucopia awaits: National Engineers Week, Leos Carax at the Siskel, and films in 70mm at the Music Box.  Stay tuned.

Lohan on Mies, Sambunaris' Taxonomy, Democracy and the Built Environment, Prentice v. Commission again - more for February

It's only the first Monday in the month and already have half a dozen new items on the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

click images for larger view

For Tuesday, the 26th, we've added an intriguing new event, Democracy and the Built Environment, with Peter Onuf and Marshall Brown, at the Koolhaas McCormick Campus Center at IIT , while on  Wednesday the 12th, Dirk Lohan lectures on his grandfather in Mies van der Rohe's Legacy and the Chicago Skyline, at the Block Museum  in Evanston, the same day the Chicago ACE Mentor Program has its benefit lunch at the Chicago Hilton.

This Thursday, the 7th, Victoria Sambunaris lectures the Museum of Contemporary Photography, currently showing her exhibition, Taxonomy of a Landscape . . .

Sambunaris will also be offering a gallery walkthrough of the exhibition lunchtime on the 12th.

Coming up this week, SEAOI looks at the Wells Street Bridge Reconstruction on Tuesday the 5th, the same day Martha Schwartz is at Fullerton Hall for the School of the Art Institute, and the Chicago Center for Green Technology looks at Chicago's Sustainable Streets Program.

On Wednesday, Joshua Freedland of Wiss, Janney, Elstner discusses Engineering of the Washington Monument lunchtime at CAF.  On Thursday, the folks at Forgotten Chicago talk about their amazing website at the Cultural Center for Friends of Downtown,  the Chicago History Museum has a program on the late Crosstown Expressway and, but far from least . . .

 . . . the Commission on Chicago Landmarks takes up Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital - again - at their monthly meeting, in the County Board Room, 5th floor of the County Building, 118 N. Clark, 12:45 p.m.  Come by to support Prentice, or just take in the show

Check all the nearly 50 great items still to come on February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Arets, Gang, Gamper, Ghost Facades, Airports, Crosstowns and Engineers Running Amuck - it's the February Calendar!

Oh, yeah, grab your Valentine (hey! - not there) - it's the February Calendar of Chicago Architecture Events.

click images for larger view

February starts off with Wiel Arets talking about his book Autobiographical References at the Graham on Friday the 1st, while Saturday the 2nd, Clare Lyster leads the second Archi-Salon - System Synergy at the Art Institute in conjunction with the exhibition Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects, where curator Karen Kice offers the last gallery talk on Thursday, the 21st.

February 17-23 is National Engineers Week, and CAF recognizes the work of engineers with this month's Wednesday lunchtime lectures: Joshua Freedland of Wiss, Janney Elstner talks about Engineering of the Washington Monument  on the 6th, Joseph Burns of Thornton Tomasetti provides A Look Under Chicago's Block 37 on the 13th, Tom Jacobs of Krueck and Sexton talks about Glass Engineering in Architecture on the 20th, and Terry McDonnell discusses The Revitalization of the (Sears) Willis Tower Skydeck on the 27th 

Of course, every week is Engineers Week at The Structural Engineers Association of Illinois, but this month SEAOI looks at the Wells Street Bridge Construction, Tuesday the 5th at the Parthenon (the timeless landmark, not the building in Athens) and at the Design of Low-Rise Reinforced Concrete Buildings on Thursday the 14th at UBS Tower.  It all leads up to Dr. Shankar Nair's lecture Skyscrapers-Past, Present, Future, sponsored by SEAOI at CAF on Tuesday, the 26th.

Elsewhere, Gensler's Elva Rubio discusses Ghost Façade: 618 S. Michiganfor Landmarks Illinois at the Cultural Center on Thursday, the 21st in the afternoon, while that evening Susan King of Harley Ellis Devereaux talks about the Living Building Challengeat the Chicago Center for Green Technology

Over at Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute, the School of the Art Institute is sponsoring lectures by landscape architect Martha Schwartz on Tuesday the 5th, and Martino Gamper on Monday, the 18th, while the people from the indispensable website Forgotten Chicago mark their 10th anniversary with a lecture at the Cultural Center for Friends of Downtown on Thursday, the 7th.

Remember the Crosstown, the proposal to cut a new superhighway all long the west side?  David Spatz does, and he'll be talking about Crosstown Expressway Politics and the Limits of Urban Power in Metropolitan Chicago at the Chicago History Museum on the 7th, and if you can't afford a car, Christopher Ziemann will be discussing Bus Rapid Transit in Chicago atAPA Chicago on Tuesday, the 26th

The Urban Land Institute Chicago has seminars on Airports, Infrastructure Investment and the Built Environment at the Ridgemoor Country Club on the 8th, and the Chicago Hotel Market in 2013 and Beyond at the Union League on the 28th. Dr. Chris Luebkeman of Arup discusses Designing for the New Normal in the Next Decade on the 13th at AIA/Chicago, which is also sponsoring a February 28th panel with Dan Wheeler, Susan Conger-Austin, Odile Compagnon and others on Architects Balancing Practice and Academic Work.

Architect Stuart Cohen does double duty,  discussing Incremental Architecture, with Julie Hacker, at AIA/Chicago on the 7th, and on the 27th, lectures on The Architecture of Howard Van Doren Shaw for the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art at the Driehaus Museum (a/k/a Nickerson Mansion.)

And finally, early morning on the 29th at the Central Music Hall, Dr. Vladimir Fragile will discuss  This is NOT a Leap Year (You All Need to Go Home Now.)

I'm sure we'll be adding even more, but for now, check out the nearly 50 great items on the February Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.