Tours at Farnsworth House, skyline changes
It may be winter, but the Chicago architecture world isn’t going into hibernation. Here are major upcoming events in the first half of 2019:
Farnsworth House in the snow: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s mid-century modernist masterpiece is open for winter tours for the first time.
Owned and managed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the house museum will offer tours on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. from Jan. 5 through March 23. It’s located at 14520 River Road in far southwest suburban Plano. More information at https:// farnsworthhouse.org.
100 years of the Bauhaus: A traveling exhibition that celebrates the 100th anniversary the influential but short-lived German art and design school will appear at the Elmhurst Art Museum from Feb. 16 through April 21. Founded in 1919, the Bauhaus closed in 1933, under pressure from the Nazis, who detested its modern art and architecture.
Titled “The Whole World a Bauhaus,” the show will exhibit art and design pieces, photographs and documents by Bauhaus masters and students. The masters include Mies, who designed the Elmhurst museum’s home, originally a private house, after he emigrated to the U.S. More information at www.elmhurstartmuseum.org.
O’Hare expansion bake-off: The City of Chicago is expected to select an architect for the $8.5 billion expansion before Mayor Rahm Emanuel leaves office next spring.
The five finalist teams are led by Santiago Calatrava LLC of Zurich and New York; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago; Denver’s Fentress Architects; London’s Foster + Partners, and Chicago’s Studio Gang.
Plans call for models of the finalists’ expansion plans to be displayed throughout the city.
Obama Presidential Center take-off: The ongoing saga of the center, a complex honoring the nation’s first African-American president, will likely reach a turning point next spring when federal officials complete their review of the project.
The center, planned for Jackson Park and designed by New York architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, already has approval from the Chicago City Council. But the feds’ OK is needed before ground can be broken.
Construction was supposed to start in 2018, with completion anticipated in 2021.
An ambitious addition to the skyline: One Bennett Park, the 67-story condominium and apartment tower by New York architect Robert A.M. Stern, is due for a spring opening.
Located to the west of Navy Pier at 451 E. Grand Ave., the tower was inspired by 1920s Art Deco skyscrapers, like the Palmolive Building at 159 E. Walton St. Related Midwest is the developer.
South Side story: The wall-like group of skyscrapers that lines the west side of Grant Park will get a new member with the opening of Essex on the Park in the 800 block of S. Michigan Ave.
The two-building project, designed by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture of Chicago, renovates the old Essex Inn hotel and adds a 56-story rental apartment tower to its south. Oxford Capital Group, the developer, says the first tenants are expected to move in March 1.
Replacing old Prentice: Seven years after the bitter controversy that resulted in the demolition of Bertrand Goldberg’s old Prentice Women’s Hospital, a cloverleafshaped concrete high-rise at 333 E. Superior St., Northwestern University in June plans to dedicate its replacement, the Simpson Querrey Biomedical Research Center.
Designed by the Chicago office of Perkins+Will, the 13-story high-rise has a curving glass exterior wall and houses research labs. A planned second phase would bring the tower’s height to 31 stories.
Later in the year: Other big 2019 events include the third edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, scheduled to run from Sept. 19 to Jan. 5, 2020. The artistic director for the big exhibition, which showcases cuttingedge ideas in architecture, design and urban planning, is Yesomi Umolu, exhibitions curator at the University of Chicago’s Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.