Prentice, Prentice, Prentice - plus Ronan's Poetry Foundation, Mau, Calthorpe, Enquist, Vergara: already at 60 items for the June 2011 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events

Wasn't it St. Augustine who once said, "Lord, give me my summer break.  Just not yet."

It was so hot on Memorial Day today, you could be forgiven for thinking everything was shutting down for summer.  But you'd be wrong.

I'm sure we haven't gotten everything yet, but there's already 60 items on the June 2011 Calendar of Chicago Architectural events.

And if there's a theme, it's Prentice, Prentice, Prentice.  The battle to save Bertrand Goldberg should-be-landmarked Prentice Hospital from Northwestern destroying it for a vacant lot is at full press, with a benefit, Bowling for Prentice, on Monday the 6th at 10 Pin at Goldberg's Marina City, a CAF debate, Re-Use It or Lose It: Prentice and Chicago's Modernist Architecture, on the 14th at Dick's Last Resort, also at Marina City, and Landmarks Illinois President James Peters talking about  what could be, The Rebirth of Prentice, at a CAF lunchtime lecture on the 29th.

The month starts out, however, with two pillars of Chicago's architectural legacy.  First up, Ward Miller and John Vinci will discuss their indispensable book, The Complete Architecture of Adler and Sullivan, first at CAF lunchtime this Wednesday, the 1st, and then again on Saturday the 4th at the University Center on State as part of this years Printer's Row Lit Fest.  Wednesday evening, there's a the kick-off of an 18 month celebration of the 125th anniversary of Henry Hobson Richardson's Glessner House, for which ground was broken on that day in 1886.

On Thursday the 2nd, Bernie Judge and Neal Samors will discuss their new book on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive at the Cultural Center for Friends of Downtown, while at Crown Hall at IIT, there'll be an opening reception of the summer's art exhibition, featuring the work of Jeff Carter.  Over at the Driehaus Museum, AKA Nickerson Mansion, Elizabeth Meredith Dowling will be discussing her book American Classicist: The Architecture of  Phillip Trammel Shutze, while on Saturday the 4th, Anna Wolfson will be talking about Natural Building at the Chicago Center for Green Technology.

On the 26th, John Ronan will give a waitlisted talk on the occassion of the open house for the new home he designed for the Poetry Foundation. On Tuesday, the 7th, there's edition 18 of Pecha Kucha at Martyrs', while on Saturday the 11th, Structural Engineers Association of Illinois will be unveiling the winners of its 2011 Structural Engineering Awards at their annual banquet. On Wednesday, the 15th, Archeworks will be holding its Design Riot: Rise for Good Design benefit at Haymarket Brewery.

What else have we got?  Let's see: Walter Frazier, Peter Calthorpe, Ellen Markevich, Bruce Mau, Armin Linke, Palladio, John van Bergen, wind, Marcus Schmickler, Jonathan Olivares, Phil Enquist and Beijing's CBD expansion,  Margaret Cederoth and Christopher Drew in Masdar, Chicago decarbonization, Carolyn Armenta Davis and the Black Diaspora of architects, Chicago lighthouses, schoolhouses, McCormick Place Redux, Camilo Jose Vergara, and much, much more.

Check out the sixty great events on the June 2011 Chicago Architectural Calendar here.

Pecha Kucha, Abalos +Sentkiewicz, Pennoyer, Grospierre, Benjamin Marshall, Ed Uhlir, McKim,Mead, David Woodhouse, Nieto and Sobejano, and Mies's 125th - check out the March calendar! (now with more exclamation points!!!!)

If you can find something that interests you on the March Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events, you must be dead.

The month begins with a bang this Tuesday the 1st , with Pecha Kucha Volume 17, and a range of presenters from activist and education reformer Bill Ayers, Studio Gang, world architecture mapper Chris Botham, architect/design Ania Jaworska and many more.  As always, the month is heavily front-loaded, and it also includes SEAOI's dinner program on the Wacker Drive Reconstruction, and a panel discussion at the Graham featuring Jeanne Gang and John Petersen marking the publication of the new book, The Power of Pro Bono. On Wednesday, the 2nd, Jonathan Fine of Preservation Chicago unveils of the Chicago 7 Most Endangered Historic Places of 2011 at CAF,  and Iñaki Abalos + Renata Sentkiewicz lecture at UIC.  On Thursday, the 3rd, Peter Pennoyer discusses Re-Imaging Architectural Traditions for ICA  at Driehaus Museum/Nickerson Mansion, while photographer Nicolas Grospierre speaks at the opening reception for the Graham's new exhibition of his work, One Thousand Doors, No Exit, and Whitney French, Director of Farnsworth House, discusses Mies van der Rohes iconic work at the Oak Park Public Library.  On Friday, the 4th, The Benjamin Marshall Society has a fundraising gala at the Drake celebrating the Centennial Anniversary of East Lake Shore Drive.

A documentary on the 100 women architects and designers who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright screens at CAF on the 9th, where Dhiru Thadani talks about his book, The Language of Towns & Cities on the 10th and the recent work of Wheeler Kearns is subject on Wednesday, the 23rd.  Ed Uhlir discusses Millennium Park's Future in the Post Daley-Era at the Great Cities Institute on the Thursday, the 10th, the same day David Woodhouse lectures on Pavilions in the Parks: Selected New Buildings at the Oak Park Public Library.  Mosette Frederick discusses her new book, Triumvirate: MicKim, Mead & White, Art, Architecture, Scandal and Class in America's Gilded Age, at the Driehaus.  AIA/Chicago offers a tour of Florian Architects' new Hyde Park Bank Loan Processing Center on Tuesday, the 17th, the same day Rolf Achilles and Christoph Lichtenfield discuss the 1933-34 Armco-Ferro house for Landmarks Illinois at the Chicago Cultural Center, while the same group holds its annual Legendary Landmarks gala at the Ritz-Carlton on the 31st.  Also  on the 31st, Barbara Geiger, author of the upcoming Low-Key Genius, a biography of landscape designer O.C. Simonds, has a lecture at the Second Presbyterian church. A three-day Structures for Inclusion conference brings together activists, designers, funders and policy makers at SAIC on the 25th through the 27th.

Mies's 125th birthday is celebrated at his Crown Hall at IIT on Monday, the 28th, and on the 30th, a lecture by architects Fuensanta Nieto & Enrique Sobejano marks the opening of a new exhibition, Young Architects of Spain, at the Instituto Cervantes.

And did I mention this is just a sampling of what's coming up in March?  We're already at over 50 great events.  Check out the complete March calendar here.