iChicago Architecture CenterThe Loop
Currents: 60 Years of the Chicago Architecture Center
Six decades of the CAC, from fighting to save historic buildings during urban renewal to shaping design education and advocacy across Chicago. In the Orientation Space.
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In April 1966 a group of Chicagoans bought Glessner House, as the buildings around it were lost to neglect, and founded the Chicago School of Architecture Foundation. That group became the Chicago Architecture Center, and this show marks its 60 years.
It sits in the Orientation Space and draws on the CAC's own archive: the moments when staff and volunteers started a new tour or program in answer to a problem in the city, from historic buildings lost to urban renewal to cuts in vocational training. The show's page leads with the first docent class graduating in 1971. If you've done the boat tour, you've met their successors: Axios reports today's docents work without a script, sit a test and get checked by secret shoppers.
No critic has reviewed it, so take it for what it is, an institution's history told by the institution. It's included with Center admission ($15, students $10 in person, 5 and under free), open until 7pm on Fridays and Saturdays.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want architecture itself: this is the CAC telling its own history from its archive.
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
- Currents: 60 Years of the Chicago Architecture CenterCourtesy of Chicago Architecture Center
- 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