Blair Kamin – Page 18

City signs $160 million O’Hare expansion contract with team led by architect Jeanne Gang

May 31, 2019 at 10:23 a.m.

After its selection process generated controversy, the city of Chicago on Thursday announced it has signed a contract for the $8.5 billion expansion of O'Hare International Airport with a design...

Architect Helmut Jahn looks over drawings of his State of Illinois Center in 1980.

Thompson Center placed on top-11 list of nation’s most endangered historic places

May 30, 2019 at 9:34 a.m.

Backing local groups fighting to save the James R. Thompson Center from possible demolition, the National Trust for Historic Preservation on Thursday named the controversial state office building in Chicago's...

Top photos: The lobby of The Franklin, at 227 W. Monroe St. and 222 W. Adams St., is seen before (left) and after renovation. Bottom photos: The lobby of the CME Center, 30 and 10 S. Wacker Drive, is seen before (left) and after being remade.

Once stuffy, Chicago’s skyscraper lobbies are loosening up. Some are dazzling, some painfully off-key.

May 31, 2019 at 11:48 a.m.

The lobby inside the West Loop office building used to be a picture of gloom. Dark wood covered the walls around the elevators. The windows didn't let in much natural...

The three-bedroom, 1,755-square-foot cottage in Glencoe was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and sold for $555,000.

Wright buffs scramble to save a Glencoe cottage by the famed architect that’s threatened with demolition

May 26, 2019 at 10:39 a.m.

Historic preservationists are scrambling to save a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed cottage in north suburban Glencoe that's threatened with demolition. The cottage, built in 1913 as a temporary home for developer...

The Booth Cottage, a very modest, originally temporary one-story house by Frank Lloyd Wright is seen in Glencoe on May 1, 2019. It's on Landmarks Illinois' 2019 list of the most endangered historic places in Illinois.

Owners of Frank Lloyd Wright home in Glencoe file for demolition permit

May 25, 2019 at 10:05 a.m.

The new owners of a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed cottage in north suburban Glencoe have formally requested permission to tear down the 106-year-old home, a village official confirmed Wednesday. Wright, widely...

Chinese American architect I.M. Pei in Doha, Qatar, in 2008.

Remembering I.M. Pei: His spectacular buildings, his personal charm, and his Chicago slip-up

May 20, 2019 at 2:37 p.m.

What a life I.M. Pei had—and what a contribution he made to architecture and the world's cities. The New York-based, Chinese-American architect, who died this week at the ripe old...

Chicago Riverwalk construction is shown Sept. 6, 2016, looking west along the last stretch of the work near Lake Street.

New stretch of Chicago Riverwalk starts to repair the design divide between east and west sections of the path

May 18, 2019 at 1:58 p.m.

When spring weather finally arrived in Chicago this week, it brought lots of people out to the redesigned, newly opened stretch of the Chicago Riverwalk east of Michigan Avenue. They...

Dave and Diane Heinrich, of Worth, fish on the Ogden Slip across from the DuSable Park site on July 18, 2017. The land east of Lake Shore Drive and north of the Chicago River is supposed to be a 3.4-acre park.

Rahm celebrates the riverwalk, but the fate of nearby DuSable Park is a symbolic slight. Can Lori do better for all of Chicago?

May 18, 2019 at 4:23 p.m.

Architecture is a nice prop for rulers seeking immortality. The pharaohs built the pyramids; Roman emperors, the Colosseum. Departing Mayor Rahm Emanuel's ticket to undying glory is the downtown riverwalk....

The exterior of the Keller Center, a renovated mid-20th Century building at Kimbark Avenue and East 60th Street, is seen May 8, 2019, at the University of Chicago.

Kamin: The U. of C.’s architectural oddball, by the designer of the Aon Center, gets a vibrant, energy-saving remake

May 10, 2019 at 1:28 p.m.

Even for the brainiacs at the University of Chicago, it was a brainteaser. Here was this oddball building by Edward Durell Stone, architect of Chicago's Aon Center, that was a...

Architecture critic’s take on proposed One Central complex near Soldier Field: A mix of audacious and dubious

May 11, 2019 at 6:29 a.m.

It is, perhaps, too soon for an architecture critic to assess Chicago's latest megadevelopment plan, which calls for building a massive row of skyscrapers on a platform over the train...

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