iChicago Architecture CenterThe Loop
Chicago's Living Habitat
Co-curated with Openlands in the Usher Lambe Gallery, tracing the regional landscapes that sustain life around Chicago and the decisions that protected, lost or restored them.
More in Chicago
Among the prairie and wetland photographs stands a bird by Isamu Noguchi: an abstract common sparrow, in the same steel that holds up high-rises. At each landscape, a QR code plays that ecosystem as heard by avian listening devices, and the curators left the trains and cars in.
It's one room, and you walk through it on the way into Flyway City. Openlands profiles 16 landscapes across the region, among them Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary and Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, a former munitions site in Will County that is now 19,000 acres. Newcity notes that "Urban" gets a panel on equal terms with "Wetlands", fitting for a city built on a swamp.
The Sun-Times's Lee Bey called the pairing "lively and informative" and said it makes its point "without being preachy". The catch: this half is photographs, maps and text, an entry hall to the bigger show. It's in the Usher Lambe Gallery, included with $15 admission, open until 7pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and runs to 15 January.
Look for
Noguchi's steel sparrow
Look for Isamu Noguchi's abstract bird among the photographs, a common sparrow rendered in the same steel used in many high-rise buildings.
The ecosystem recordings
Scan the QR code at each landscape to hear it through avian listening devices, with passing trains and cars left in alongside the birdsong.
Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie
Photographs of a former Will County munitions factory site that is now 19,000 acres of tallgrass prairie.
The Urban panel
City wildlife gets its own panel on the same footing as Wetlands and Prairies, on ground that was historically swamp.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Evening Visits
Skip if
You want buildings: this room is landscape photographs and maps, and the architecture is next door in Flyway City.
With kids
Children 5 and under get in free and students with ID pay $10. The hands-on table where kids design bird-safe windows is next door in Flyway City.
Free in the same building
- Chicago was Built for FlyingAn exterior mural by artist Kate Lynn Lewis wrapping the Chicago Architecture Center, free to see from the street at Michigan and Wacker.
- Icons of ChicagoA CAC-curated display of three large-scale models of modernist Chicago skyscrapers, installed off-site at O'Hare International Airport.
Also at Chicago Architecture Center
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- Chicago's Living HabitatPhoto by Madison Smith
- A Tale of Today Presents Brendan Fernandes: In the RoundCourtesy of Richard H. Driehaus Museum
- Celebrating Chicago Artists: Selections from the M. Christine Schwartz GiftCourtesy of Richard H. Driehaus Museum
- Emma Stebbins: Carving Out HistoryCourtesy of Richard H. Driehaus Museum
- Chicago Architecture CenterAlanscottwalker / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Richard H. Driehaus MuseumLmh9y6 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Art Institute of ChicagoDiego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museum of Contemporary Art ChicagoCéline from Paris, France, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0