Another Park of the Forest - Gordon Gill to wreck derelict garage for major redesign of Steppenwolf Theatre complex on Halsted

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all renderings courtesy Steppenwolf Theatre

Farewell, abject parking garage on Halsted just north of the Brown Line tracks that we've come over time to love wearily accept.  Farewell, memories - and remnants - of its original unfinished derelict look, leftover columns, spalling concrete, bits of rotting plywood, and graffiti art.

In place of that garage, there will soon be the forested surface parking lot of a new Steppenwolf Theatre Company "campus", which was part of a series of major announcements on the storied Chicago stage's future. Key among these is Anna D. Shapiro taking over from Martha Lavey as the company's artistic director in the fall of next year. Also announced was a major new architectural initiative, designed by Gordon Gill of Adrian Smith+Gordon Gill Architecture with theater and acoustical consultants Charcoalblue out of London . . .

The vision for Steppenwolf’s future plan will expand and unite its campus, adding two buildings that will complement the intimate 500-seat main theater. A new facility south of the main building will house a 400-seat theater to replace the temporary Upstairs Theatre and a Public Square atrium dedicated exclusively to audience engagement and community building. To the north, the newly renovated building at 1700 North Halsted will serve as the Lab at Steppenwolf, housing a black box theater, a flexible space for community and teen programs and offices for artistic, production and administrative staff. The lobby of the existing main building will also undergo major renovation, allowing the three structures to connect seamlessly on the ground floor

Steppenwolf had bought the then uncompleted parking garage in 1994 after it had been abandoned by its original developer, along with the 36,000 square-foot lot it stands on.

40-year-old Steppenwolf, founded by Jeff Perry, Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise, has come a long way from its origins in a Highland Park church basement. Steppenwolf currently mounts an average of 16 productions a season on three stages with annual attendance exceeding 200,000 people. Last year, the company's acclaimed production of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf won three major Tony awards after its transfer to Broadway.

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Construction will be in phases, as old structures are replaced by two new ones. No price tag or final completion date was announced.  In today's press release, Gill promised "a unified campus that connects with the community and utilizes a palette of materials that are of Chicago, and on a scale appropriate for the neighborhood.”

Gill, Wimer, Johnson, Emanuel, Acconci, plus Gaudi for Christmas - it's the December Calendar!

The Holiday Season is upon us.  Some organizations are skipping December, others are having parties, but we still have a full slate for the December Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Cyril Marsolier and Wallo Villacorta, First Prize, Future Prentice competition

Make sure you check out this coming week, because events are heavily front-loaded.  On Tuesday, December 4th, CAF has a panel discussion on Shelter - Design for Social Change, with Roberta Feldman, John Car, Bryan Bell, Sunny Fisher, Patrick Tighe, and Theresa Hwang, the same day Archeworks has its mid-year Design Review and SEAOI has Practicing Green: A Guide to the Structural Engineer as the topic of their monthly dinner meeting, and Glessner House has its 125th Anniversary Dedication Dinner.  Over at Martyr's, there's edition #24 of Pecha Kucha Chicago, with Jordan Mozer, Tess Landon, and Future Prentice design competition winners Cyril Marsollier and Wallo Villacorta among  the presenters.

Wednesday the 4th, lunchtime at CAF, Brian Lee and Ross Wimer of SOM, discuss their Infinity Tower in Dubai and Nozul Lusail Marina in Doha.  Thursday the 6th, all day at the UIC Forum, there's a major symposium:  Metropolitan Resilience in a Time of Economic Turmoil, whose participants include Rahm Emanuel, Pat Quinn, Toni Preckwinkle, the mayors of Columbus, Las Vegas and Pittsburgh, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. 

That evening, ULI Chicago presents its 2012 lifetime achievement award to Eugene Golub.  On Friday, Karen Kice offers another curator's tour of the Art Institute's Building: Inside Studio Gang, while AIA/Chicago's Holiday Party and Annual Meeting at Revolution Brewery honors Farr Associates, Matt Dumich, Paul Knight, Vincent Paglione and Lynn Becker.

Wednesday the 12th finds Gordon Gill at CAF lunchtime to talk about AS+GG's next world's tallest building, Kingdom Tower, while in the evening Vito Acconci lectures at the Art Institute, with dining packages available at Terzo Piano.

On Wednesday the 19th, CAF lunchtime closes out its month of heavyweights with Ralph Johnson of Perkins+Will talking about their Universidade Agustinho Neto in Luanda and Women and Children's Wellness Centre in Nairobi.

And starting Friday, the 21st, the year closes out with the Gene Siskel Film Center's holiday tradition of booking Hiroshi Teshigahara's hypnotic documentary Antonio Gaudi.  (and for something completely different, that same week at the Siskel you also get another to check out Leos Carax's audacious Holy Motors.)

There's also Julia Bachrach on The City in a Garden at Garfield Park Conservatory, and Larry Okrent on Chicago from the Sky at both AIA/Chicago and at the Cultural Center for Friends of the Parks. And much more.

Check out the nearly three dozen great items and exhibitions on the December 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Digital Design at SOM, Giancarlo Mazzanti on Colombia Transformed, Gordon Gill at Unity Temple and lots more to come on the April Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events

We're halfway through the month and we're still adding new items to the April 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

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On Monday, April 23rd, SOM Chicago is sponsoring a panel discussion, Digital Design at SOM: The Past, The Present and the Future Experiences and Lessons from a Platform for Practice, at the Arts Club.

Today, Monday the 16th, 6:00 p.m. architect Giancarlo Mazzanti will lecture at the Instituto Cervantes in an event affiliated with their current exhibition, Colombia Transformed: Architecture = Politics.  He will be introduced by the exhibition's curator, Vladimir Belogolovsky.  Also at 6:00 over at the Driehaus Museum, architectural historian Dennis Doordan will talk about Organic Design and Classical Architecture: A Chicago Story.  Monday also marks the final four showings of the Architecture and Design Film Festival at the Music Box, repeating films on Pruitt-Igoe, Robert Stern, Victor Gruen and Zaha Hadid.

Wednesday, the 18th, lunchtime at CAF,  Josh Ellis of the Metropolitan Planning Council talks about The Cost of Water, while Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering offers a breakfast symposium on Building the New Children's Memorial Hospital.  Thursday, the 19th, lunchtime at the Cultural Center, architectural historian Jean Guarino discusses Myth Buster: New Perspectives on the Chicago School for Landmarks Illinois, while at 5:30 at the Häfele America Chicago Showroom, DoCoMoMo/US President Theo Prudon discusses his organization's role in Preserving Modern Architecture, while on Friday, the 20th, 7:30 p.m., Gordon Gill talks about Form Follows Performance at the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Unity Temple in Oak Park.

And there's much, much more.  Check out the nearly three dozen great offerings still to come on the April 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

David Watkin, ICOMOS's Araoz, Lost Panoramas, Of Dolls and Murder, Three Centuries of St. Louis Architecture at Willis Tower - March is bursting with still more events

Yes, it's March 19th, and no, it's still not too late to be adding to the March 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

This Thursday, March 22, is logjam day, with Gustavo Araoz, president of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, lecturing on The 20th Century and Other Gaps in the World Heritage List: A Unique Opportunity for the U.S., at Lightology,  while over at the Chicago Yacht Club, the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art Chicago-Midwest is sponsoring a lecture by classicist scholar David Watkin, Emeritus Professor of the History of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, who will discuss Classical Language Past and Present. 

Meanwhile, at Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, Richard Cahan will be discussing his splendid new book, The Lost Panoramas, taken from a massive collection of glass-plate negatives taken between 1894 and 1928 documenting the effects, from the Loop to rural Illinois, of reversing the flow of the Chicago River.

On Wednesday the 21st, Chicago Commissioner of Transportation Gabe Klein talks about Chicago's Transportation Innovations for Lamba Alpha International, Ely Chapter at Petterino's, while over at CAF at lunchtime,  Gordon Gill discusses Smith+Gill's design for the new National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago in what was Rolling Stone Records on Randolph, while at Holy Name Cathedral, APT Western Great Lakes Chapter is sponsoring a discussion of The Collaborative Approach Used to Restore Cluster Columns at the cathedral.  Sunday the 25th the Glessner House Museum celebrates the 134th birthday of Frances Glessner Lee with  the local premiere of Of Dolls and Murder, a new documentary narrated by John Waters on the pioneering criminologist and her famous Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.

Starting Tuesday over at Willis Tower, there's a new exhibition, American City: St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design, featuring 80 photos from the striking book of the same name that we previously wrote about here.

Mies Birthday Party, the Birth of the New East Side, The History of the South Loop, Sam Jacob, Liza Fior and Damon Rich at the Graham, and Juan Herreros at UIC - the hits just keep coming - nearly three dozen still to go - on the March 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.