Architecture geeks of Chicago are drooling over the agenda for the Society of Architectural Historians conference in Chicago this April, including a special Chicago seminar and 30 very special architectural history tours of Chicago.
Like any academic conference, the SAH brings together scholars to present their papers of new research. Within 36 paper sessions, around 180 architectural historians will discuss their topics in the grand history of the built environment from antiquity to the current day. Speakers include architecture critic Blair Kamin, as well as “History Detectives” host Gwendolyn Wright.
Unlike a regular academic conference, the SAH opens up possibilities for the public to stir up their curiosities of Chicago topics in architectural history. A half day seminar, “Magnitudes of Change: Local Sites and Global Concerns in Chicago’s Built Environment,” will have two panel discussions with representatives from a variety of local organizations, including architecture firms, educational institutions, and non-profits. It is funded in part with a grant from the Graham Foundation, which is always up to cool and progressive projects in architecture.
The architectural history tours of Chicago will showcase Chicago neighborhoods and downtown architecture, and these are available to the public with registration beginning on February 16. Architectural historians, authors, and architects will lead these tours. As a tour company ourselves, this is the part of the conference that we are most looking forward to. “Cutting-Edge Adaptive Reuse: The Chicago Athletics Association Hotel” will visit this beautiful building that has been boarded up for years and will reopen as a hotel. “Recent Skyscrapers on North-South Wacker Drive” will showcase the incredible building activity in this part of downtown. And neighborhoods tours will explore the historic and contemporary architecture of Pilsen, Pullman, Uptown, and the new 606 Urban Park. Tours will also addresses features of the built environment that to many would be a gray area for their definition of architecture, such as “Chicago’s Moveable Bridges,” as you see pictured above. Many other options are available.
This is the 75th anniversary of the conference, so a grand birthday party will be held on April 17 at the Rookery. The Society of Architectural Historians, which is based in Chicago, has their conference in different cities each year, so this is a special opportunity to connect with the study of buildings and how they reflect changes in the forces of politics, culture, social uses, engineering, and technology.
Registration is available now here.
— Amanda Scotese, Executive Director
