Blair Kamin – Page 51

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama arrive for the International Jazz Day Concert on the South Lawn of the White House of the Washington.

Obama, first lady review design proposals for presidential library

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

President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on Sunday were reviewing design proposals for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, White House officials said. Seven architectural firms, including one from Chicago,...

The entrance gate to Ravinia Festival on Sheridan Road in Highland Park on April 29, 2016.

The power and beauty of gateways: They beckon, intimidate

May 23, 2019 at 3:59 a.m.

Cloud Gate. The Union Stock Yards Gate. The University of Chicago's Cobb Gate. The Division Street Gateways. The gates of Ravinia. Your architecture critic has gates on the brain. And...

Light comes in through large glass windows as students work in the third-floor classroom of Gina Alicea, chair of the fine arts department, at the Gordon Parks Arts Hall on the campus of the University of Chicago April 21, 2016, in Chicago.

George Lucas-sponsored building at University of Chicago better than proposed museum

May 23, 2019 at 3:59 a.m.

As controversy swirls around the latest plan for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, it's worth noting that filmmaker George Lucas and his wife, financial executive Mellody Hobson, already have...

The Rev. Michael Enright presides over the 10 a.m. Mass at St. Adalbert Roman Catholic Church in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood on June 26, 2016. The Chicago Academy of Music is interested in purchasing the church and renovating it into a music conservatory.

Long-term plan needed for Chicago’s many threatened church buildings

May 23, 2019 at 3:58 a.m.

Their spires soar above three-flats and bungalows, etching the skyline of Chicago's neighborhoods. Their soaring interiors and stained glass windows represent a spiritual home for millions — even those who...

Architect Ma Yansong at the originally proposed future site of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

Lucas Museum Episode II: Public space strikes back

May 11, 2019 at 3:13 a.m.

Even if nothing ever comes of it, the new plan to tear down McCormick Place's Lakeside Center to make way for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art reveals something important:...

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>

Chinatown library branch wins award

December 17, 2018 at 6:04 p.m.

The Chicago Public Library's Chinatown branch, an elegant departure from the city's past practice of constructing cookie-cutter public buildings, has won a national design award from the American Institute of...

The completed bleachers in left field before the Cubs-Mets game on May 11.

Wrigley Field remake: Now it’s beautiful outside, too

May 23, 2019 at 3:58 a.m.

For decades, the phrase "beautiful Wrigley Field" didn't fit the ballpark's exterior, which was covered in gray concrete panels that could have been lifted from a 1960s parking garage. The...

The main entrance to Cook County Hospital is mostly empty in 2003, except for a woman who had toured the closed building.

Restoration plan for old Cook County Hospital has welcome elements

June 11, 2018 at 3:13 a.m.

Still rough but basically sound, the redevelopment plan for the beloved but battered old Cook County Hospital building and its surroundings has the makings of a good design prescription. The...

The South Shore Cultural Center, a landmarked building at 70th Street at the lakefront.

Chicago architect Benjamin Marshall’s work highlighted in new book

May 23, 2019 at 3:58 a.m.

The Italian Renaissance grandeur of the Drake Hotel is his, as is the delightfully pink fantasy of the Edgewater Beach Apartments rising on the north end of Lake Shore Drive....

Billy Paul, center, a jazz and soul singer best known for the No. 1 hit ballad and "Philadelphia Soul" classic "Me and Mrs. Jones," died April 24, 2016. He was 81. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-billy-paul-obit-20160424-story.html" target="_blank">Read more</a>.

Zaha Hadid, visionary architect and 1st woman to win Pritzker Prize, dies at 65

May 22, 2019 at 9:36 p.m.

Visionary London architect Zaha Hadid, renowned for her swooping, strongly sculpted buildings and for being the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize, her field's highest honor, has died...

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