Thursday: City of Bridges, Animal House to Our House

That's right, no calendar yet, so here's what's going on today, Thursday, August 2nd.

At 12:15 p.m., in the Millennium Room of the Chicago Cultural Center, Friends of Downtown offers a talk by Jim Phillips on City of Bridges, a virtual tour of the 18 bridges just in the city's downtown. all of which can also be found on Phillips informative website.

At 7:00 p.m. at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square, 4736-38 North Lincoln, author Ron Tanner will be discussing his book, From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story. concerning the restoration of a condemned Victorian brownstone in Baltimore.

Landmarks, Ty Tabbing on State Street today - March calendar . . . soon

 click images for larger view

Spring was in the air Wednesday - for all about two hours.  What better time not to do necessary work?   So, the March calendar isn't quite ready yet.  I forgot to feed the cat and he gnawed away the "M" key on my keyboard.  I don't think it agreed with him, 'cause when he thew up, it was only an "N". Maybe the rest will come out later.

But I digress.

So here's a heads-up that today, Thursday, March 1st, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks holds its monthly meeting at 12:45 p.m. in the City Council chambers, 121 North LaSalle, Room 201-A, marking still another month of being missing-in-action on the most important preservation issue currently in play in Chicago:  protecting Bertrand Goldberg's iconic Prentice Hospital from Northwestern's determination to destroy it for an empty lot.

Over at the Millennium Room at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 East Washington, at 12:15 p.m., Friends of Downtown puts on its monthly brown bag luncheon lecture (white bags also ok, clear plastic, no - nobody wants to have to look at all the stuff you're about to eat).

Ty Tabbing of the Chicago Loop Alliance will "present a talk on the history and the remake of State Street over the past two decades, including the removal of the mall."  Tabbing had written to us last November, when we had some rude things to say about the Alliance's Lightscape project, that the Alliance's Pop-Up Art program, using the windows of empty storefronts as temporary galleries, was still a going concern, and he's proven true to his word.

Pictured at the top of this post is a Pop-Up display of Scott Williams "past and present screen printed posters that have a heavy r&B/soul feel.  His posters have gained a cult following here in Chicago."  It's on display 24/7 in the street-level windows of the long-empty Holabird and Roche Century Building at 202 South State, owned by the Federal government.  With the new canopy and display windows, the GSA has turned what was once a derelict corner with rotting scaffolding into a handsome Loop amenity.

There's also, Artists Without Borders, the work of Liz Miller and Baltazar Castillo in the windows of the former Borders store at 150 North State.  I was looking at the work in one of those windows when a guy came up to me - "Hey, I see you looking at this.  You know, I was in the alley across the street over there by the theater and I looked down and I saw this piece of wood and it was shaped just like a dagger.  It looked just like this art in the window here, see?  I was thinking of just laying it down in front of the window, but then I said, nah, that wouldn't probably be right."

But I digress.

And now . . .

. . . a beaver with a stick . . .

from  the exhibition, Loop Value: The How Much Does it Cost? Shop, at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 South Michigan

So I have to go back to the calendar now, or maybe just lie down.

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.

Today: Landmarks 2011 Preservation Excellence Awards, Okrent's Chicago from the Sky

As usual, we're working to complete the September calendar (and it's packed), with the month really starting after the Labor Day holiday.

Two Thursday events day, however, kick off the month.  Today at 10:00 a.m., at the Sidney Yates Room at the Cultural Center, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks will hold the Awards Ceremony for its 2011 Preservation Excellence Awards, with the honorees including both a book, The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan; an exhibition, Louis Sullivan's Idea, and such renovation projects as the White Castle #16 on Cermak, Jens Jensen's 300 West Adams, the McCormick Double House on Rush, among others.  The usual monthly meeting of the commission, Prentice still not included, takes place at 12:45 in City Hall chambers.

Also at the Cultural Center, at 12:15 in the Millennium Room, Friends of Downtown's September session will feature urban planning consultant and photographer Lawrence Okrent discussing and showing images from his book, Chicago From the Sky: A Region Transformed.

Clare Tower, Bird-Friendly Design, Jones College Prep, Ace Mentor benefit at the Vertigo Lounge, Bus Rapid Transit in Chicago - August far from dead: two dozen great items on this month's Architectural Calendar

Yes, it only seems that everyone's closed up shop and moved to the country.  The August Calendar is alive and well.

Just this Thursday, AIA Chicago offers a tour of Perkins+Will's Clare Tower, and Friends of Downtown have a program on the same firms new building for Jones College Prep, while at Wishnick Hall at ITT, there's a symposium on Bird-Friendly Building Design.  The Commission on Chicago Landmarks also meets on Thursday.  Still no Prentice, and the Permit Review Committee for the month has been cancelled. (Having trouble finding an architect left on the Commission to run it?)

Next week, on Tuesday, AIA Chicago has a session on Community Planning for Wicker Park and Bucktown.  Later in the month, the Metropolitan Planning Council marks the release of its report, Bus Rapid Transit: Chicago's New Route to Opportunity, with a roundtable discussion on Wednesday, the 17th, while on Tuesday, the 23rd, the ACE Mentor Program, which helps Chicago area high school students explore careers in architecture, construction and engineering, holds its annual fundraiser at the Vertigo Sky Lounge at the Dana Hotel.

I'm sure we'll find more, but even now there are over two dozen great programs on the August Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.  Check them all out here.  Or here.*

*this is a test to see how many times we can get you to click on the exact same link.

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.