Showing posts with label festivals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label festivals. Show all posts

10.14.2007

Chicago Humaities Festival

The 18th Annual Chicago Humanities Festival runs from October 27th to November 11th here in -- you guessed it -- Chicago, Illinois. There's a great schedule of lectures, art installations, plays, panel discussions, and movies that are all focused on the festival's theme, "The Climate of Concern," which translates to global warming and sustainability issues. If you live in the Chicago area or are planning a visit some time during the two-week festival, you should definitely check out the website.

I just bought my tickets to a few archi/urbanism related events, so I wanted to throw it out there -- if any of you Where readers is planning to attend any of the following events, email me and perhaps we can meet up. The more the merrier, right? Hope to see you soon. ;-)

304: PANEL
Sustainable Building in Chicago -- A Scorecard
Tue, Oct 30 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Museum of Contemporary Art, Theater
220 E. Chicago Ave.
FREE (Tickets still required)

903: FACETS FILM SERIES
Starship Troopers
Wed, Oct 31 6:30 PM

Facets Cinémathèque
1517 W. Fullerton Ave.
Tickets: $5.00

420: PANEL
Adaptation -- The Other Half of Our Response to Global Warming
Sat, Nov 3 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Thorne Auditorium, Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago Campus
375 E. Chicago Ave.
Tickets: $5.00
(I am also planning to walk down to Millennium Park after this to check out ARCTIC.)

809:
Douglas Kelbaugh with Harrison Fraker: The Greening of the Metropolis
Sun, Nov 11 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Thorne Auditorium, Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago Campus
375 E. Chicago Ave.
Tickets: $5.00

5.05.2007

Great Chicago Places and Spaces

Having grown up in the "City of Festivals," I have developed a great appreciation for large, civic celebrations. Cultural festivals, music festivals, street festivals...I love them all. One thing that I had not encountered, until now, is a festival dedicated entirely to places. But on the weekend of May 18-20th, the City of Chicago will be hosting just that.

The Great Chicago Places and Spaces event is not so much a centralized "festival" in the traditional sense of the word as it is a citywide celebration of geo-identity. All cities define themselves by two things -- people and places. Chicago, though, has a special affection for its places; it is one of the world's great architectural capitals, so its public spaces and buildings take on a special importance. Architecture is to Chicago what film is to Los Angeles: lifeblood.

GCPS will open with a public lecture entitled Innovation in Social Housing: Art, Design and Community that will feature Rick Lowe, Carol Ross Barney, Raul Raymundo and Curtis Lawrence. Saturday and Sunday have full schedules of architectural and neighborhood tours that will cover everything from the renaissance of Bronzeville to the influence of the Burnham Plan to recent architectural landmarks. (Most tours are free and open to the general public, but some require pre-registration and a small fee, so if you plan on going make sure to register soon!) In between tours, participants can take self-guided tours of the city's great interior spaces (The Rookery, La Salle Bank Building, Reliance Building, and others) or attend a number of place-related events that include an architectural film festival, exhibits at the Art Institute on the drawings of Louis Sullivan and Renzo Piano's glassy new addition, and the School of Architecture at UIC's Year-End Show. It's like a place buffet!!

So if you're at all interested in architecture, public space, or Chicago in general, plan a trip out to the Windy City. You'll never have a better excuse.


Links:
Great Chicago Places and Spaces

Chicago Architecture Foundation