Blair Kamin – Page 35

A boat passes as guests attend the grand opening of Apple's Chicago flagship store on Oct. 20, 2017. The store plans to dim its lights at night to prevent bird strikes during migration season.

New Apple store to dim lights at night after group says birds are flying into its glass

May 23, 2019 at 12:06 a.m.

Facing criticism from wildlife groups who say its glassy new Chicago store is causing deadly bird strikes, Apple plans to dim the store’s lights Friday night, a company spokesman said,...

Conductor Carlos Kalmar leads the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus at the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion Friday, Aug. 21, 2015, in Chicago.

The Guggenheim Bilbao’s impact on Chicago and the world still resonates

May 11, 2019 at 6:23 a.m.

Twenty years ago this month, Frank Gehry’s masterful Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain fired an architectural shot heard ’round the world. Its revolutionary, shimmering mass of titanium catapulted Gehry to...

New tower proposal: A plus for the skyline, less attractive at street level

May 11, 2019 at 6:23 a.m.

The ideal skyscraper gives something to the city, not only in the glamorous realm of the skyline but also in the nitty-gritty sphere of the street. Measured by that yardstick,...

Plans unveiled for what could be city’s 6th-tallest skyscraper

May 11, 2019 at 6:23 a.m.

A Chicago developer unveiled drawings Tuesday for what could be the city's sixth-tallest skyscraper and the third-tallest north of the Chicago River. To be built on what is now a...

Bleacher stairs made of granite overlook a projection screen and the Chicago River at the new Apple Store at 401 N. Michigan Ave.

From Spanish Steps to the new Apple Store, stairs provide spatial drama

May 31, 2019 at 4:07 p.m.

From the Spanish Steps in Rome to the stairs that front the Art Institute of Chicago, stairs have made an indelible mark on the art of architecture. They don't just...

The plaza outside Chicago's new Apple store, photographed Oct. 19, 2017, looks over the Chicago River.

Apple’s new flagship store an understated gem on the Chicago River

May 11, 2019 at 6:23 a.m.

Chicago's new Apple store is thrillingly transparent, elegantly understated and a boon to the city's riverfront. With its huge sheets of laminated glass and an ultra-thin roof of lightweight carbon...

The main lobby and entrance, lower right, of the Wintrust Arena in Chicago on Oct. 4, 2017.

Art Deco high-rise in Hyde Park, new arena at McCormick Place among top picks for Open House Chicago

May 11, 2019 at 6:22 a.m.

No less an architect than Frank Lloyd Wright once said that the reality of a building is the space within its outside walls. Which is why I'm recommending some favorite...

The seating in Wintrust Arena in Chicago on Oct. 4, 2017.

McCormick Place hotel and arena not exceptional architecture, but provide a bit of spark in a dull area

May 11, 2019 at 6:22 a.m.

For decades, the McCormick Place convention center has been an urban dead zone — a powerful economic engine, but one of the city's dullest places. The center's enormous buildings had...

Apple store likely to go without rooftop logo

May 11, 2019 at 6:22 a.m.

When Apple's ubiquitous logo temporarily appeared on the roof of its under-construction Michigan Avenue store last June, it prompted a media kerfuffle: The logo, in the view of some observers,...

Nick Cave has been singing about mortality for decades, and he's really good at it. Whether the narratives are biblical or pulpy, the victims innocents or death row convicts, the circumstances comprehensible or cruelly random, Cave's songs are on intimate terms with the infinite ways a life can be extinguished. And yet, "Skeleton Tree", his latest album with his estimable band, the Bad Seeds, is a relatively concise song cycle shadowed by death that feels different than all the rest. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/kot/sc-music-nick-cave-skeleton-tree-ent-0916-20160916-column.html" target="_blank">Read the full review.</a>

Bite-sized Biennial shows give the big exhibit a Chicago focus

December 17, 2018 at 9:44 a.m.

Eero There's a new wrinkle to this year's edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial: Six satellite exhibits, spread around the city, that are smaller in scale, easier to grasp and...

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