Art Deco Chicago: Designing
Modern America, with author Robert Bruegmann
When: Thursday, January
17, 2019; reception at 4:30 pm, lecture at 6:00 pm, with optional dinner
afterwards.
Where: Cliff Dwellers,
200 S Michigan Avenue, Chicago. For dinner reservations @ $35.00 per person,
please call Cliff Dwellers at (312) 922-8080. (For validated parking after 4:00
p.m., $14.00 at the Adams-Wabash garage, SW corner, get parking card from night
manager at the Cliff Dwellers).
What: Robert Bruegmann
presents Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America (2018) in a talk
entitled “The Art Deco Visual Universe”. “Art Deco as a style term was invented
in the 1960s. It represented a genuine popular revolt against the accepted
wisdom of the Museum of Modern Art and the advocates of avant garde modernism.
Despite almost continuous opposition from academics, it has increasingly become
a standard art historical term for architecture, graphic design, product and
industrial design between the two world wars. In Art Deco Chicago we defined it
as much of the modern design production between 1910 and 1960 that was neither
strict historical revival on the one hand or avant garde on the other.
Seen in this light Art Deco architecture and design, from Deco pioneers like
Frank Lloyd Wright or Ludwig Hoffmann to the stripped-down traditional
buildings of the postwar decades like the Ferguson Wing of the Art Institute or
automobiles from Detroit, can be seen as the mainstream of modern design, a
real international style, and the last genuinely popular design paradigm.” Mr.
Bruegmann is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History, Architecture,
and Urban Planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also the
author of the The Architects and the City: Holabird and Roche of Chicago,
1880- 1918, and, most recently, The Architecture of Harry
Weese. Please join us for this event, good for AIA/CEU
credit. AIA Chicago is co-sponsoring this event with CCSAH.
Cost: Free to members,
$10.00 for non-members.
RSVP: To sign up,
contact Judy Freeman: by email: jrfree3500@aol.com, or by telephone:
773-929-0329.
When: Wednesday,
February, 2019, reception (cash bar) opens at 4:30 pm, lecture begins at 6:00
p.m. (Dinner details as at left in the Robert Bruegmann lecture notice).
Where: Cliff Dwellers,
200 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago.
What: “Out of the
Ordinary: Spatial Urbanism”. In this presentation, John Ronan FAIA, Founding
Principal of John Ronan Architects, will discuss the firm's investigations of
the relationship between the building and the city, and the exploration of
urban spatial conditions that exist between inside and outside, public and
private, building and street that expand and enrich the public realm, adding
complexity to the urban spatial experience. These "urban room"
projects such as the Poetry Foundation, 151 North Franklin office tower, Obama
Presidential Center competition design and new IIT Innovation Center in Chicago
pose the question, "Where does the building end and the city begin?"
John Ronan FAIA, of John Ronan Architects in Chicago, founded in 1999, serves
as Lead Designer on all projects and is known for his abstract yet sensuous
work which explores materiality and atmosphere. Some of his notable buildings
in Chicago include the Poetry Foundation (shown above left), the Akiba-Schecter
Jewish Day School, the Gary Comer College Prep and Youth Center, Christ the
King Jesuit Preparatory School, the new 151 North Franklin office tower, and
the upcoming Kaplan Innovation Center at IIT. Additionally, he is the Rowe
Professor of Architecture at IIT, and has also been a visiting professor of
architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. A monograph of his body of
work entitled Explorations: the Work of John Ronan was published by Princeton
Architectural Press in 2010. Please join us for this exciting event! Reserve
early to save a seat.
Cost: Free to members,
$10.00 for non-members.
RSVP: For further
details, and/or to reserve a spot, please contact Judy Freeman by email: email:
jrfree3500@aol.com, or by telephone: 773-929-0329.
Ken Tadashi Oshima,
president of the Society of Architectural Historians and Professor of
Architecture at the University of Washington, discusses with Chicago
Architecture Biennial Artistic Directors Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee the
global design practice of Frank Lloyd Wright in "making history" in the
contemporary context. Building on new findings from the 2017 Museum of
Modern Art exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive, the discussion with Johnston and Lee will focus on precedents and parallels with the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
