Blair Kamin – Page 41

Architects reveal excitement over Obama library, but little else at first Chicago event

June 5, 2018 at 10:35 a.m.

One of the co-designers of the Obama presidential library and museum revealed Tuesday how she reacted when she heard that she and her architectural partner husband had won the job....

2010 file: Alexander Calder's Universe in the Willis Tower lobby.

Willis Tower Calder mobile coming down

June 5, 2018 at 10:20 a.m.

A monumental mobile by Alexander Calder, one of the 20th century's great artists, began to disappear from its decades-old home in Willis Tower's lobby Monday, headed for an art storage...

Looking down at the three-story atrium and the stadium seating between the first and second floors of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management building in Evanston on March 22, 2017.

Northwestern’s new business school home promises valuable lessons

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

Pay no attention to the fact that the curvy new home of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management resembles the letter "K" when seen from the air. The $250 million building,...

Mayor unveils combined public housing, library designs — are they more than pretty pictures?

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

When Mayor Rahm Emanuel's media handlers call, they're not inquiring about my health. They're pitching architecture stories they think will make the mayor look good. This week's offering: City officials...

The General Growth building currently at 110 N. Wacker Drive is dwarfed by many of the downtown area's larger buildings.

Wacker Drive tower with riverwalk clears Plan Commission

June 5, 2018 at 1:56 p.m.

Plans for a 51-story office tower along the Chicago River cleared a key political hurdle Thursday, winning approval from the Chicago Plan Commission, but a major financial hurdle remains —...

On further review, Illinois’ new license plates even worse

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

Now that Illinois' new license plates have started appearing on cars and other vehicles, I'd like to revise an opinion from last fall, when I wrote that the plates' design...

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>

Grand to grandiose: World Trade Center Hub is overblown, a lesson to think smart

December 17, 2018 at 5:13 p.m.

It's a bird! Actually, it looks more like a cross between a stegosaurus and a porcupine. For those who expected architectural greatness, not just over-the-top grandiosity, from Santiago Calatrava's $4...

Alderman moves to protect Lakeview mansion from demolition

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

Chicago's next significant historic preservation battle likely will be fought over a century-old, eight-bedroom East Lakeview mansion that a Serbian cultural organization uses as a museum and conservationists consider a...

2nd Architecture Biennial to feature Tribune Tower ‘redesigns’

May 23, 2019 at 4:02 a.m.

With the newspaper business booming 95 years ago, the baiduhai immodestly announced an international design contest for "the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world." Its bragging...

Pritzker Architecture Prize goes to 3 people — a Spanish team that blends old and new

December 17, 2018 at 5:14 p.m.

For the first time, three architects have jointly won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's highest honor. A relatively unknown team from Spain, two men and a woman, are the...

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