teaching/exhibit _ REVIEW OF 1:1 UNIT MOCKUP
UIC Today features Collective Housing Studio and Exhibit, “Architecture Students Explore Big and Small Ideas for Housing,” July 29, 2024.
UIC Today features Collective Housing Studio and Exhibit, “Architecture Students Explore Big and Small Ideas for Housing,” July 29, 2024.
Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago: Rise and Fall of Experimentation in Concrete, ed. Alexander Eisenschmidt (Barcelona: Actar, 2024).
…Impressions from the collective housing summit. To view all recordings, visit UIC’s School of Architecture YouTube channel.
…conference _ AT HOME WITH THE COLLECTIVE (A TEASER)Read More »
“At Home with the Collective: A Summit on Communal Housing,” convened at UIC Architecture in Chicago, Thursday, October 19 – Friday, October 20, 2023. This 2-day summit gathered speakers from around the world, local stakeholders and activists, as well as city officials who have radically rethought established norms of living, models of homeownership, and the formal, programmatic, material, and legal parameters of housing. Our ambition was to generate new knowledge that can confront the current struggle for affordability and speak to the potential of collective housing as a productive challenge for architecture.
…“From House to Housing and from Old Infrastructure to Smart Living,” lecture and round table discussion at the Smart Cities Symposium, Casablanca, Morocco, June 8, 2023.
…talk _ FROM HOUSE TO HOUSING AND FROM OLD INFRASTRUCTURE TO SMART LIVINGRead More »
The book project Félix Candela from Mexico City to Chicago was awarded a 2023 Graham Foundation publication grant.
“Collective Bargaining for Collective Housing: Hilberseimer, Goldberg, and the Labor Union’s Struggle Towards New Typologies of Living,” lecture at ACSA 111th Annual Meeting, In Commons, March 31, 2023, 10:30-12pm.
Talk and round table to discuss the themed issue of The Plan Journal, vol. 7, no. 2, Fall 2022 on “The Right to Housing,” at ACSA Annual Meeting in St. Louis, March 31, 2023, 4-5:30pm.
“Hilberseimer, Labor Unions, and the Women’s Movement,” The Plan Journal Vol. 7, Issue #2 The Right to Housing (Spring 2023), 299-323.
…essay _ HILBERSEIMER, LABOR UNIONS, AND THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENTRead More »
“In Search of Félix Candela in Chicago,” lecture for We@UIC, February 15, 1pm … an introduction of the forthcoming edited volume on Félix Candela in Chicago.
“From the Existing City to Collective Housing,” in Reading Hilberseimer, ed. Florian Strob, Reihe Bauwelt Fundamente (Berlin: Birkhäuser, 2022), 99-113.
…essay _ From the Existing City to Collective HousingRead More »
Lake Shore Hut featured in Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech, eds. K.Michael Hays and Andrew Holder (2022), 160.
“City Beyond Form,” lecture for a Festschrift in honor of Prof. David Leatherbarrow at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, May 20, 2022.
…“Romanticism to Ruin: Two Lost Works of Sullivan and Wright, at Wrightwood 659,” The Burlington Magazine #163, (December 2021): 1192-1195.
…“Three Episodes on Urban Potential,” for Chicago Architecture Biennial: The Available City, catalogue (2021). Online reading here.
“Invention of a Metropolitan Architecture: From the Existing City to Interior Urbanism” lecture at the Bauhaus Dessau Conference Hilberseimer – Infrastructures of Modernity, October 28, 2021.
…“Notes on Urban Spielraum,” Magasin for Bygningskunst og Kultur, #2 The Art of Analysis (2021). Read online here.
“Preface,” in Trans-Atlantic Engagements, ed. Steffen Lehmann (San Francisco: ORO Editions, 2021), 9-13.
…Roundtable discussion on “Public Space and Collectivity” at the Urbanism Beyond Corona Symposium hosted by the Urban Works Agency at the California Center of Art, Nov. 16, 9am (PST).
Lecture on “The Good Metropolis” at Jefferson University, College of Architecture and the Built Environment, 6pm, September 21, 2020.
Review of The Good Metropolis in Architectural Record. Daniel Brook writes: “Eisenschmidt audaciously argues that a central tension in modern city-building has gone hiding in plain sight. While architects are by nature control freaks, sweating the details of their artifacts, the space where their creations are housed—the modern metropolis—is, by nature, out of control … All should eagerly tune in to his future broadcasts.”
Lecture tour across Europe in fall of 2019 to introduce and launch The Good Metropolis.
…Interview about The Good Metropolis on Night White Skies by Sean Lally. Listen to the Podcast at Night White Skies, iTunes, or Spotify.
Drawing exhibited at Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism: Collective City, Seoul, Korea, September 7 – November 10, 2019.
…Architect’s Newspaper quotes Eisenschmidt on Chicago’s Thompson Center sale.
…The Good Metropolis Salon, a book launch and conversation on the productive tension between the city and architectural form, at UIC Architecture, South Lobby, A+D Studios, April 30, 6pm.
“Urban Optics and the Specter of a Beautiful Metropolis (II)” Public Lecture at the School of Literatures, Cultural Studies, and Linguistics, University of Illinois at Chicago, April 15, 2019.
Lecture on the “Urban Optics and the Specter of a Beautiful Metropolis (I)” at the Bauhaus Beyond Borders conference at Northwestern University, Chicago, April 5-7, 2019.
Radio Interview at Buildings on Air, # 25, live on WLPN/Lumpen Radio (February 2, 2019).
Remarks at book launch of Bowling by UrbanLab, UIC Architecture, December 11, 2018.
“The Story of an Intersection, or How Early Chicago Became an Urban Laboratory,” Architectural Theory Review, 2018, vol. 22, #2, p. 233-248.
…Moderating panel at the Entangled Urbanism symposium at Northwestern University, Evanston, May 17-18, 2018.
Curating and exhibition design of Félix Candela’s Concrete Shells: An Engineered Architecture for Mexico and Chicago, Gallery 400, University of Illinois at Chicago, January 19 – March 3, 2018 (with research and models originated by Juan Ignacio del Cueto Ruiz-Funes).
…Keynote, “Architecture of an Accelerated Metropolis,” for the conference “Chicago Schools: Authors, Audiences, Histories” at IIT’s Crown Hall, Chicago, November 18, 2017, 3:30pm.
Twentieth-Century Architecture (The Project(s) of Modern Architecture), co-edited with David Leatherbarrow, vol. 4 in The Companions to the History of Architecture, ed. Harry Francis Mallgrave (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017).
…Lecture, “In Pursuit of an Architectural Urbanism,” at GSAPP Columbia University, New York, February 15, 2017, 3 pm.
Remarks and moderating panel at The Logistical City symposium organized by Clare Lyster and hosted by the UIC Institute of Humanities, February 7, 2017, 9am-5:30pm.
Lecture, “The City as Visionary Project,” to the Urban Design Program at the Taubman College, University of Michigan, February 3, 2017, 6pm.
Interview in Chicago Tribune Arts Section cover story, January 15, 2017.
“Autopia: Notes on Banham’s Visionary Metropolis,” Joelho: Journal of Architectural Culture #07 (Fall 2016): 54-63.
…“Dear Mayor Fernando Medina,” at the Letters to the Mayor exhibition, Galeria dos Paços do Concelho, Lisbon, Portugal, October 10 – November 30, 2016 (org. Storefront for Art and Architecture and Lisbon Triennial of Architecture).
…Citation of “Search for an Architectural Urbanism,” in The Form of Form (Zurich: Lars Müller and Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, 2016), 118-119 and “Urbano Fantástico,” in O Mundo nos Nossos Olhos – The World in Our Eyes (Lisbon: Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa, 2016), 8-9.
…VC Project featured in UIC News
Lecture, “In Pursuit of an Architectural Urbanism,” at KU Leuven Campus Sint-Lucas, Brussels, Belgium, October 10, 2016, 6:30pm.
The Opinionator (A. Eisenschmidt), “The List of 38,” Flat Out #1 (Fall 2016): 2,12-17.
…In Search for an Architectural Urbanism, exhibited at The World in Our Eyes, part of the 4th Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Lisbon, Portugal, October 6, 2016 – January 15, 2017.
…exhibit _ “IN SEARCH FOR AN ARCHITECTURAL URBANISM” AT LISBON ARCHITECTURE TRIENNALERead More »
Thanks to the Getty Foundation for supporting the book project The Good Metropolis with the Library Research Grant, Summer 2016.
“Collective City,” in Re-Living the City: UABB 2015 Catalogue (Barcelona: Actar, 2016), 130-135.
…exhibit _ Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture CatalogRead More »
Collective City exhibition at the 2015 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen, China, December 4, 2015 – March 1, 2016.
…exhibit _ “COLLECTIVE CITY” AT THE BI-CITY BIENNALE OF URBANISM\ARCHITECTURERead More »
Architectural Record publishes Phantom Chicago Panorama in the article “High Time: Chicago Skyscrapers,” October 2015.
Talk “City as Laboratory” and roundtable discussion on “Chicago’s Global History,” Cultural Center of Chicago, 78 E. Washington, October 16, 2015, 6pm.
…“When You’re Having More Than One,” Roundtable discussion on design criticism, IIT, Crown Hall, October 3, 2015, 6-7:30pm.
Radio interview about Chicago Architecture Biennial; DeutschlandRadio Kultur, October 3, 2015.
A conclusion to the catalog and an introduction to the city: “A History of Chicago in Ten Architectures,” in Chicago Architecture Biennial: The State of the Art of Architecture, catalog (CAB Publishing, 2015), 153-159.
…essay _ A HISTORY OF CHICAGO IN TEN ARCHITECTURESRead More »
Radio interview about Chicago’s Ferris Wheel by NPR’s All Things Considered, July 2, 2015 (broadcasted July 3).
Graham Foundation Publication Grant for The Good Metropolis book project, 2015.
“In Support of the Speculative Project – A Chicago Legacy,” MAS Context #25-26, “Legacy” issue (Spring-Summer 2015): 12-19.
…Round-table discussion on Urbanization with Adriaan Geuze, Wiel Arets, Vedran Mimica, Martin Felsen, and Kees Lokman at IIT Architecture, March 23, 2015, 1:30pm.
Keynote at the “After Empirical Urbanism” symposium, University of Toronto, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, March 1, 2015, 1:30pm.
Conference “A City to Speculate?” Chicago Cultural Center, Millennium Park Room, 5th floor, 4-6 PM, November 22, 2014.
…Reviews of Chicagoisms exhibit in Domus, Architectural Record, DesignBoom, Architect, Dwell, Huffington Post, Canadian Architect, …. (full list)
Chicagoisms makes Architecture Boston (AB) List of top books to read in 1914, followed by Koolhaas’ Delirious New York and Wolfe’s From Bauhaus to Our House.
“The Export of Metropolitan Architecture” lecture at the AA in London, UK (10/28), the University of Kent, UK (10/29), Hochparterre in Zürich, CH (10/30), the OfficeUS at the Venice Biennale, IT (10/31), and Pro qm in Berlin, DE (11/03).
…“Metropolitan Architecture: Karl Scheffler and Alfred Messel’s Search for a New Urbanity,” Grey Room #56 (Summer 2014): 90-115.
…Book Reviews of Chicagoisms in Dwell, Chicago Reader, the Mexican journal Arquine, and the German magazines Wohnrevue and Umriss.
“A New Visionary;” lecture at the “Instruments for Urban Production” symposium in conjunction with the book launch of The Petropolis of Tomorrow and hosted at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, April 25, 2014, 6pm.
Gallery Talk on “Chicagoisms” at the Art Institute of Chicago, April 24, 2014, 6pm.
“Chicagoisms” exhibit featured on TV at WTTW and headlined Chicago Tribune Arts Section: “Small Gallery Stuffed with Big Architectural Ideas” by Blair Kamin.
Book launch event with panel discussion and reception at the Graham Foundation, April 5, 2014, 2pm.
…Chicagoisms exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Kurokawa Gallery, April 24, 2014 – January 4, 2015. Co-organized and curated with Jonathan Mekinda; exhibition design by Studio Offshore (Eisenschmidt) in collaboration with graphic designer Matthew Wizinsky.
…exhibit _ “CHICAGOISMS” AT THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGORead More »
Chicago Reader publishes interview and book review of “Chicagoisms.”
“The New Visionary,” a talk at the Opening Keynote Session at the AIAS Forum in Chicago: “Prospects for an Evolving Profession,” Fairmont Chicago, December 30, 2013, 4pm.
Lecture on “Chicagoism” at Mies’ IIT Crown Hall, October 25, 2013, 12:30pm.
Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation, eds. Alexander Eisenschmidt with Jonathan Mekinda (Zürich: Scheidegger & Spiess/Park Books, 2013).
…Over the duration of the exhibition City Works, the models traveled throughout the gallery, visiting different parts of the panorama’s visionary history, and, finally, came together to create a new collective project of the city – one that is intended as Provocation for Chicago’s Urban Future.
…Gallery Talk, at the occasion of the exhibition City Works: Provocations for Chicago’s Urban Future at the Expo 72 Gallery, September 18, 2013, 5:30pm.
City Works: Provocation for Chicago’s Urban Future exhibition at the City of Chicago’s Cultural Center – Expo 72 Gallery (72 E. Randolph Street, Chicago), May 24 – September 29, 2013.
…The Atlantic reviewed the Phantom Panorama Exhibition & App.
The Visionary Cities Project developed an iPhone app in collaboration with Cheng+Snyder (www.chengsnyder.com).
…Chapter “Stranger Than Fiction,” in Once Upon a Place, eds. Susana Oliveira and Pedro Gadanho (Lisbon: Caleidoscópio, 2013), 121-31.
…Invited speaker at the National Conference of the American Planning Association, Chicago, April 15, 2013 [a talk, intended as a provocation to planning].
…Panel discussion and interview on the exhibition “City Works” for the Venice Architecture Biennale at the Arts Club of Chicago, December 4, 2012. The panel was moderated by Sarah Herda (Director of the Graham Foundation).
…“Importing the City into Architecture,” a conversation with Bernard Tschumi, conducted on July 13, 2011 in New York and published in City Catalyst, Architectural Design, #219 (2012), 130-135.
…Public lecture for the official lecture series at John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, November 15, 2012.
Book Launch of City Catalyst at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (September 22, 2012, 1pm) and Launch Party at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture (October 5, 2012, 6pm).
City Catalyst: Architecture in the Age of Extreme Urbanization, Architectural Design, # 219 (September/October 2012).
…International conference on the state of visionary urbanism, in collaboration with and hosted at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, 10am-6pm, September 22, 2012 (over 200 attendees, 3 panels, 15 speakers, 3 moderators). Event is featured in full length at Radio WBEZ-NPR.
…conference _ VISIONARY CITIES: URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL FUTURES TO COMERead More »
Video installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, September 10 – 23, 2012.
Video interview at the 13th Venice Biennale about the curation of City Works, August 2012, aired on September 2012 at La Biennale Channel [4 min].
“Fantastisches Berlin. Die Entdeckung einer Neuen Metropole,” in August Endell 1871-1925: Architekt und Formkünstler, eds. Nicola Bröcker, Gisela Moeller, Christiane Salge (Berlin: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2012), 326-335; a collection of essays on the works of August Endell. Reviewed in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Kunstchronik.
…essay _ FANTASTISCHES BERLIN. DIE ENTDECKUNG EINER NEUEN METROPOLERead More »
Designer and curator of City Works exhibition at the 13th International Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy, August 27 – November 25, 2012.
Invited by David Chipperfield, director of the 13th Venice Biennale, Eisenschmidt designed and curated an exhibition that re-envisions a series of Chicago’s urban environments. The installation is a collaborative effort of 5 teams that involves a large model of a visionary Chicago (12’x12′, produced by David Brown, Studio Gang, Stanley Tigerman, and UrbanLab) as well as an encompassing drawing (100’ long) that creates a visual backdrop. The outside of the screen (produced by the Visionary Cities Project/Alexander Eisenschmidt) is a panorama of a Phantom Chicago, entirely composed of unbuilt visionary proposals for the city.
…exhibit _ “CITY WORKS” AT THE 13th VENICE ARCHITECTURE BIENNALERead More »
VC: Catalog of Visionary Architectures for Chicago was part of the official reference display at the Museum of Contemporary Art for the exhibition Skyscraper: Art and Architecture Against Gravity, June 30 – Sep 23, 2012.
…exhibit _ VC CATALOG ON DISPLAY AT THE MCA CHICAGORead More »
Design and implementation of a new format for reviews in architecture at the Journal of Architectural Education, 2012-2013. For the first time, the section is curated around themes rather than media.
…Review of The Liberal Monument: Urban Design and the Late Modern Project, by Alexander D’Hooghe, Journal of Architectural Education, #65:2 (May 2012): 143-145.
Keynote lecture at the Manufactured Landscapes conference, Chicago, May 19, 2012.
“The Non-Concept City,” a discussion on urbanism with Edward Mitchell, including Robert Bruegmann, Ellen Grimes, Tim Mennel, Jonathan Miller, organized by New Projects, Chicago, March 13, 2012. The exchange was published in the Journal of Architectural Education #66.1, October 2012.
…Review of Urban China: Informal Cities (exhibition), Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, #71:1 (March 2012): 129-31.
…Published in Four Conversations on the Architecture of Discourse, eds. Aaron Levy and William Menking (London: AA Publications, 2012). Excerpts from a recorded discussion, organized and hosted by the Graham Foundation, on the state of architectural exhibitions, April 27, 2011 (other participants: Sarah Herda (host), William Menking, Aaron Levy, Penelope Dean, Theaster Gates, Mark Wasiuta, Lisa Lee, …).
…interview _ CONVERSATION ABOUT ARCHITECTURE ON DISPLAYRead More »
Public lecture at The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, February 7, 2012.
…talk _ CHICAGOISM: A CITY’S VISIONARY ARCHITECTURAL DREAMS AND NIGHTMARESRead More »
Review of Requiem: For the City at the End of the Millennium, by Sanford Kwinter, Journal of Architectural Education, #65:1 (December 2011): 96-97
…“CHI·CA·GO·ISM (SHÏ-KÄ’GO´IZƏM)” Public lecture at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Chicago, November 2, 2011.
“Urbanisms and Other Urban Practices,” lecture at Symposium on Architectural and Urban History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (organized by Robert Bruegmann), October 28, 2011.
Developed as part of the theory course “Architectural Visions of the City,” the exhibition recorded, compared, analyzed, and extrapolated Chicago’s architectural dreams and nightmares (UIC Architecture Ramp Gallery, April 28 – Sep 2, 2011).
…“Informal {=Without Format} Cities,” lecture hosted by the Center for Architecture in Philadelphia, April 15, 2011.
“The Pleasure of Shopping and Other Misdeeds: Wertheim’s Pandemonium of Traffic and Goods,” lecture at Between Experience and Representation: Cities in an Area of Tension, international conference, Radboud University of Nijmegen, Holland, March 10, 2011 (presented in absence).
“Theorien der Raumanschauung und die Entstehung einer neuen Metropole,” was cited in Matthias Schirren’s article “Freiheit und Ordnung: Der Philharmonie Osteingang,” in Scharoun, exhibition catalog, 2011.
Round table participant on “New Research,” Northwestern University, Chicago, December 3, 2010 (other participants: Barry Bergdoll, Andreas Beyer, Neil Levine, Martin Bressani, Robert Bruegmann, and Harry Mallgrave; organized by David Van Zanten).
“Informal Cities,” symposium in collaboration with and hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, October 24, 2010.
…Panel chair at the ACSA West Central Fall Conference Flip your Field, University of Illinois at Chicago, October 21-23, 2010.
…“Stranger Than Fiction,” lecture at the Once Upon a Place – International Conference on Architecture and Fiction, at the occasion of the Lisbon Triennial of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal, October 12, 2010.
Review of Radio Broadcasts, 1929-32, by Walter Benjamin, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Multimedia section, #69:2 (June 2010): 262-65.
…essay _ TUNING IN: WALTER BENJAMIN BROADCASTING THE CITYRead More »
“Theorien der Raumanschauung und die Entstehung einer neuen Metropole,” lecture at the August Endell: Die Berliner Jahre, Freie Universität Berlin, Kunsthistorisches Institut, April 24, 2010. (cited in Matthias Schirren’s article “Freiheit und Ordnung: Der Philharmonie Osteingang,” Catalog on Scharoun’s Philharmonie, 2011).
“Chicago in the World” session at the Annual SAH Meeting, co-chaired with Jonathan Mekinda Chicago, April 22, 2010 (speakers included Penelope Dean, John Harwood, Igor Marjanovic, and Joanna Merwood-Salisbury).
“Forms of Practice,” lecture at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, on the work of Studio Offshore, July 7, 2009.
“From Urban Formlessness to Informal Practices: Berlin, Tokyo, Lagos,” lecture at the Informal Cities Conference, Royal University College of Fine Arts Stockholm, Sweden, September 6, 2008.
“Shopping for a Metropolitan Architecture: Early Commercial Buildings in Modern Berlin,” lecture at the SAH Annual Meeting (panel: The Limits of Community), Cincinnati, OH, April 24, 2008.
“Tricksters of Modernity: Autodidactic Appropriations in Architectural Visions of the Metropolis,” lecture at the SAH Annual Meeting (panel: Creative Misreading), Pittsburgh, PA, April 9, 2007.
“Visual Discoveries of an Urban Wanderer: August Endell’s Perception of a Beautiful Metropolis,” Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, #11:1 (March 2007): 71-80.
The Formless Metropolis and Its Potent Negativity (dissertation project) received the Graham Foundation Carter Manny Award Trustees’ Merit Citation, 2006.
“Architecture in Search for a Language of Urban Resistance,” lecture at the Spiegel Symposium, structured around an exhibition of Barry Le Va, Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Philadelphia, PA, March 17-18, 2005 (speakers included David Lewis and Mark Wasiuta, moderated by Detlef Mertins; with keynote lectures by Greil Marcus and Barry Le Va).
“Ein Dorf, Ein Ort, Eine Landschaft,” introduction for Ralf Schuhmann’s exhibition catalog Endstation Etzweiler (Bonn: Offener Atelier Katalog, 2004).
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