In the Spring and Fall of 1992, the Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism hosted a public dialogue series at their headquarters, the Charnley House in Chicago. Invited guest speakers gave presentations on their work, by the fireplace in the Charnley House Library, followed by a dialogue with the audience. The series was funded, in part, by the Graham Foundation and the SOM Foundation.
Spring and Fall, 1992
Charnley House
1365 N. Astor St., Chicago, IL 60610
Charnley House, Chicago. © Hedrich Blessing.
December, 5, 1991
Eva Jiricna, Eva Jiricna Architects, London
“Recent Work”
March 12
Douglas Darden, architect, Denver, CO
“Fearful Symmetries”
The event included the screening of Rob Miller’s 1992 video Douglas Darden: Looking after the Underbelly
March 19
Dick Hebdige, cultural critic and Reader in Communications, Goldsmith’s College, London
“Down the Line: The Railway as Metaphor”
March 26
James Hillman, psychoanalyst, Thomson, CT
“Ceilings, City and Soul: on the Design of the Interior”
April 2
Mike Davis, urban theorist, Los Angeles
“The Impossible Los Angeles: Urban Design in a Nightmare Decade”
April 16
Jean-Louis Cohen, Professor, Ecole d’Architecture, Paris-Villemin
“The Wall and the Freeway: Designing the Paris Ceinture”
April 30
Wes Jones, architect, Holt Hinshaw Pfau and Jones, San Francisco
“Words, Buildings, Machines”
May 25 (presented at the Graham Foundation, with reception afterwards at the Charnley House)
John Hejduk, architect, Dean, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York City
“Outside Practice”
June 4
Shulamit Ran, Composer in Residence, Chicago Symphony Orchestra
“On Music (or, Architecture Unfrozen)”
June 10 (presented in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Chicago)
Senator Dr. Volker Hassemer, Minister of Urban Development and Environmental Protection, City of Berlin
“Berlin: Visions of a Metropolis”
June 18
Andrea Kahn, architect and writer, New York City
“The Nomad Architect: the Building-Body in Jacques Tati’s Playtime”
June 25
Richard Bolton, visual artist, Chair, Studio Art, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Reinventing the Public Sphere: The Mobile Forum, Subject: Male Violence, and Other Recent Public Art Projects”
Charnley House Fireside Chats, Fall 1992, poster.
September 17
Judith Brine, Dean of Environmental Design, University of Canberra
“Here Lies Adelaide: Palimpsests of a Planned City”
September 24
Keller Easterling, architect, playwright, and coauthor of Seaside, New York City
“Call it Home: The House That Private Enterprise Built”
The event included a presentation of a videodisc documentary of American suburbia 1936–60, compiled in collaboration with industrial films archivist Rick Prelinger
October 20
James Woudhuysen, Associate Director, Henley Centre for Forecasting, London
“The Future of Cities: Information Technology and Urban Change”
November 5
Philip Johnson, architect, New York City
“Where We Are Now”
November 19
Gary Rivlin, Staff Writer, The East Bay Express, San Francisco and author, Fire on the Prairie: Chicago’s Harold Washington and the Politics of Race
“The Race Question: Its Impact on Urban Development”
December 3
Christian Zapatka, architect and CIAU Fellow-in-Residence
“From Menlo Park to Luna Park: Thomas Edison and the Illumination of the American City”
December 10
Marilyn Jordan Taylor, Head of Urban Design and Planning, SOM, New York City
“What Large-Scale Urban Design and Transportation Projects Have in Common”
