It’s not often that an exhibition is broadly visionary and distinctly do-it-yourself. But “Flyway City: Architecture for a Flourishing Ecosystem,” on display at the Chicago Architecture Center through Jan. 3, is both.
And it’s mostly about birds and their migratory ways — not your typical fare at the CAC’s Skyscraper Gallery.
It’s largely the brainchild of architect and Studio Gang founding partner Jeanne Gang, who has been obsessed with the relationships between birds and buildings since at least 2003. That’s when her firm won an international competition for the Ford Calumet Environmental Center. Gang’s design was never built, but the firm’s research into and design of “bird-safe” features have continued.
“Flyway City” started with a conversation between Gang and CAC CEO and President Eleanor Esser Gorski around the question of what would cities look like if we designed them from the start with wildlife and people in mind. The exhibit was developed as a collaboration between their two organizations.
“Chicago’s Living Habitat” — curated by the conservation-focused nonprofit Openlands with the CAC — provides a preface for the larger exhibition. It defines five very different habitats — prairie, wetland, woodlands, dunes and swales, and urban — that define the Chicago area. The tidy little exhibit highlights several publicly accessible examples for each.
The birds that traverse our skies over each of these landscapes provide the focus for the larger exhibit. There are four major flyways in North America, the north-south routes that migratory birds take between Canada and Central and South America each year. Chicago’s location directly on the Mississippi Flyway makes the city one of the best urban areas to see birds in North America.
Cities are living habitats, and birds play a larger role in this ecosystem than we often realize. “They spread seeds, they’re pollinators, they clean up deceased animals, so they stop the spread of disease,” Studio Gang principal Alissa Anderson said. “They do a lot of things for human society to keep us healthy and to bring us food.”
But there has been a 30% decline in North America’s wild bird population over the last 50 years, which affects the economy and our quality of life.
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And the contemporary built environment causes carnage among birds. On one infamous night in October 2023, nearly 1,000 birds died after flying into the clear glass walls of McCormick Place’s Lakeside Center. Overall, 1 billion birds die colliding with glass each year in North America. Treating the glass can reduce that figure by up to 95%, according to the exhibit’s organizers.
While that’s a grim statistic, change is possible.
“We’re going to empower you to walk out of the gallery and know how you can take action to help out and make positive change,” Anderson said. “We wanted to acknowledge the seriousness of the issue, but balance that with a lot of clear information and a solutions-oriented, optimistic, and proactive approach.” In fact, McCormick Place has implemented changes that have prevented a recurrence of that fall night.
The role of cities in creating the carnage can be misunderstood. Birds tend to mistake glazing for open sky, but surprisingly, the peril isn’t primarily driven by taller glazed buildings in cities such as Chicago. In fact, birds tend to fly within the height of the tree canopy that seldom reaches above 100 feet. So, the windows of bungalows, worker cottages, three-flats, and more typical neighborhood-scaled construction can be as dangerous, or more, than the Loop’s glazed high-rises.
Much of the show is something of a Studio Gang retrospective that demonstrates just how important these concepts have been throughout Gang’s career. Chicagoans will recognize many of the projects, including Aqua Tower (2010), the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo (2010), Studio Gang Chicago office and rooftop ecosystem (2015) and City Hyde Park (2016).
And the exhibit presents relevant ideas through the work of other architects. John Ronan’s Chicago Park District Headquarters & Park 596 (2023) incorporates extruded aluminum screens across its windows. The Hub at Prairie Shores in Bronzeville by Gensler uses acid-etched glass. And the recently completed DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center in Glen Ellyn by Wight & Co. employs a copper screen, a standard dot pattern, and a pattern that creates oversized graphic leaves across its varied facades.
In Chicago, colleges and universities including Northwestern, the University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago have become early adopters of bird-safe techniques.
The CAC’s Illinois Center home along the Chicago River features 25-foot-tall windows that face north and east — showcasing Chicago’s architecture while offering an especially treacherous environment for birds. Much of this glazing has been retrofitted with an ultraviolet dot pattern that’s hardly perceptible to us but lifesaving for birds.
Since most Chicagoans live in structures that can be hazardous to birds, the organizers want to demonstrate how any visitor can become part of the solution. And bird-friendly retrofits need not be complicated or expensive.
“We’re showing four different DIY techniques that any homeowner or renter can do to make the windows safe,” Anderson said. A few double-hung windows have been modified to demonstrate possible applications: hanging vertical strings, paint or decal patterns, exterior insect screens and other mesh materials, or translucent tape. While practical, these solutions are not equally aesthetic; your results may vary.
The organizers are ultimately looking for more than just DIY efforts.
“The biggest thing we can do to make a difference on bird safety in Chicago is to pass a comprehensive ordinance for bird safe design in the city,” Anderson said. And we’d hardly be at the forefront of this effort, as New York, Washington, San Francisco, Toronto and even Evanston have already done so.
For a part of the country that’s distinctly lacking in topography, “Chicago’s Living Habitat” is a strong reminder that Chicago’s region is naturally quite diverse. And “Flyway City” uses the prism of birds to bring wildlife into the conversation about how we want to imagine our city.
It’s an unexpected topic coming from one of our most recognizable architects and a civic institution dedicated to the built environment. But it’s thoughtfully presented and gives us some useful design techniques to consider.
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While “Flyway City” may not ever replace “Windy City,” there’s no reason we can’t add the moniker while embracing the relatively simple changes that can make Chicago a safer place for birds — and people.
Edward Keegan writes, broadcasts and teaches on architectural subjects. Keegan’s biweekly architecture column is supported by a grant from former Tribune critic Blair Kamin, as administered by the not-for-profit Journalism Funding Partners. The Tribune maintains editorial control over assignments and content.
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