Blair Kamin – Page 47

David Sudler tends to his makeshift pumpkin patch on Chicago's Lower Wacker Drive on the site of the proposed Wanda Vista Tower near the Lakeshore East development July 14, 2015.

Groundbreaking for Vista Tower is latest sign that post-9/11 fear of heights is history

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

By coincidence, Wednesday's groundbreaking for Chicago's 98-story Vista Tower came nearly 15 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Vista, a condominium and hotel skyscraper designed by local star Jeanne...

Outside the front door of Tribune Tower.

Respect for Tribune Tower’s history should guide developers

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

With the baiduhai likely to exit the skyscraper that bears its name by June 2018, if not sooner, some colleagues are sidling up to my cubicle and urging me...

Tribune Tower redevelopment plan gets first challenge

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

In a city rich in architectural and urban planning history, it should come as no surprise that the first battle lines over the redevelopment of historic Tribune Tower have formed...

The marble entry near the lobby of the Kimpton Gray Hotel on Aug. 30, 2016, in Chicago.

Hotel gracefully restores building designed by ‘father of the skyscraper’

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

So many historic Chicago office buildings have been converted into boutique hotels lately, saving buildings of great character from the scrap heap, that this trend threatens to become routine. But...

"The Modern Chair" is an exhibition in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago.

A small show about chairs hints at larger design ambitions at the Art Institute

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

At some point in your life, maybe in a lecture hall or a church basement, chances are you've sat in a masterpiece of mid-20th century design — the "GF 40/4...

The new City Hyde Park tower at 1501 E. Hyde Park Blvd in Chicago on Aug. 11, 2016.

City Hyde Park high-rise breaks up apartment monotony

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

Architect Jeanne Gang's buildings invariably are experiments, as intriguing for the ideas behind them as for the buildings themselves. Her latest, City Hyde Park, a 14-story high-rise, is billed as...

Looking east from Kedzie Avenue and 31st Street near the Collateral Channel on Aug. 16, 2016.

New rivers plan: Bold strokes and big challenges

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

Good urban planning can make you smile. Consider Chicago's 2009 plan for the downtown riverwalk, which laid out a vision for turning the once-dreary docks along the Chicago River's south...

MILA tower is seen here July 27, 2016, at the intersection of North Michigan Avenue and Lake Street.

Michigan Avenue high-rise a city-friendly addition to once-dreary stretch

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

For decades, the glamorous retail strip of Chicago's Magnificent Mile had a southern stepchild, a motley collection of buildings just south of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. There wasn't much of...

The Horticultural Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition will be the site of the Obama library.

Obama library site once home to World’s Columbian Exposition greenhouse

May 23, 2019 at 3:11 a.m.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama won't be the first to build something on the future site of the Obama presidential library. A sizable portion of the Obama...

A bicyclist in Jackson Park near the site of the Obama Presidential Center on April 14, 2021.

Jackson Park a good choice for Obama library, but major challenges loom

May 23, 2019 at 4:00 a.m.

The two South Side parks that vied to host Barack Obama's presidential library were anything but identical twins even though both were designed by the great landscape architect Frederick Law...

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