Edgar Miller Legacy is proud to offer partner programming with the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Edgar Miller Legacy, in partnership with AIA Chicago, offers three distinct workshops and tours held at the Kogen-Miller Studios featuring special guest lecturers who will speak to different aspects of Miller’s architectural achievements and how they relate to the wider world of architectural history, decorative arts, and community building. All workshops qualify for AIA Continued Education System credits, and include an in-depth tour of Edgar Miller’s Glasner Studio led by Edgar Miller Legacy Executive Director, Zac Bleicher.
While these workshops are tailored to practicing architects, designers, and art and architectural historians, members of the general public and students with an interest in any of the above fields are also welcome.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2017 (3LUs)
Edgar Miller, Architecture and the Decorative Arts
Robert Bruegmann PhD
There have been many attempts over the years to break down the professional barriers separating architects, artists and artisans in order to create integrating environments for living, working and playing. Edgar Miller and his band of collaborators achieved one of the most interesting and idiosyncratic examples of how this kind of collaboration might work. This session will consider this work in the context of contemporary practice in the United States and Europe.
Robert Bruegmann is a historian and critic of the built environment. He received his PhD in art history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976 and since 1979 has been at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Art History, Architecture and Urban Planning. Among his books are the award-winning The Architects and the City: Holabird & Roche of Chicago 1880-1918 (1998), the controversial Sprawl: A Compact History (2005), and The Architecture of Harry Weese (2010). He is currently acting as editor of Art Deco Chicago: Making American Modern, about Chicago architecture, industrial design, graphic design and fashion c. 1910-50, to be published by the Chicago Art Deco Society. His main areas of research are in the history of architecture, urban planning, landscape and historic preservation.
OCTOBER 21, 2017 (3LUs)
Edgar Miller and the Legacy of Arts & Crafts
Michelangelo Sabatino, PhD
This session will consider Miller’s contribution to the built environment of Chicago and how his work is situated in the context of Arts & Crafts in the Americas and Europe.
Michelangelo Sabatino is an architect and historian whose research broadly addresses intersections between culture, technology, and design in the built environment. From his research on preindustrial vernacular traditions and their influence on modern architectures of the Mediterranean region, to his current project, which looks at the transnational forces that have shaped the architecture, infrastructure, and landscape of the Americas over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, he has trained new light on larger patterns of architectural discourse and production. Sabatino is professor and director of the PhD Program at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture in Chicago. Sabatino currently serves as the Interim Dean of the College of Architecture.
NOVEMBER 18, 2017 (3LUs)
Art, Architecture, and Community, and the Right to the City
Lisa Yun Lee, PhD
This session will consider the relationship between community-based social movements and architecture, art and the built environment and how art, design and architecture foster inclusivity and the people's right to the city.
Lisa Yun Lee is Director of the National Public Housing Museum and the previous Director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. She is a member of the Art History and Gender and Women's Studies faculty at UIC, and a Presidential Fellow. Lee serves on the national boards of The American Alliance of Museums, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, and Ms. Magazine. Locally, she serves on the Boards of Rebuild, and 3Arts. As a writer, she has published articles about feminism, radical museum practices, diversity, and as well as strategies for creating democratic spaces.
About the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial
The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial will be open to the public and on view from September 16,
2017-January 7, 2018. Press and professional previews will take place September 14 and 15. The
opening of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial will align with the sixth annual EXPO CHICAGO,
the International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art, which will run September 13-17 at
Navy Pier. The hub of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial will once again be the Chicago
Cultural Center, located in downtown Chicago.
The manifestation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s vision for a major international architectural event
and an outcome of the comprehensive cultural plan developed by Chicago’s Department of Cultural
Affairs and Special Events under the leadership of Michelle T. Boone, the inaugural 2015 Chicago
Architecture Biennial was presented through the support of BP, and in partnership with the City of
Chicago and the Graham Foundation. Joseph Grima and Sarah Herda, Co-Artistic Directors,
curated the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial, entitled “The State of the Art of Architecture.”
The Chicago Architecture Biennial’s mission is to provide a platform for groundbreaking
architectural projects and spatial experiments that demonstrate how creativity and innovation can
radically transform our lived experience. Through its constellation of exhibitions, full-scale
installations and programming, the Chicago Architecture Biennial invites the public to engage with
and think about architecture in new and unexpected ways, and to take part in a global discussion on
the future of the field.
Sponsors and Special Partners of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial
The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial is presented in partnership with the City of Chicago’s
Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events and funded through private donations with lead
support from SC Johnson, Presenting Sponsor; BP, Founding Sponsor; Marriott, Hotel Sponsor;
and philanthropic support from The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Chicago Community
Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
This year, the Chicago Architecture Biennial will align with EXPO CHICAGO (September 13-17,
2017) through a series of programs that establish the city as a preeminent destination for global
contemporary architecture and art. The Chicago Architecture Biennial’s Signature Education
Sponsor is the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
