Apr, 26, 2011,
1:55 PM

IPRO Day

Thursday, April 28th is IPRO Day on the IIT campus.

IIT’s Interprofessional Projects Program (IPRO) tasks interdisciplinary teams of students—often pairing them with a corporate or community sponsor—with solving real-world problems in engineering research, process improvement, sustainability, service learning and venture development.

This year’s projects range from vertical farming to renovating the old Ramova Theater in Bridgeport to piston pin manufacturing to bringing laptops to kids in Haiti.
Judges are volunteers from Chicago’s professional community.

We’re secretly pulling for our friends in IPRO 333 who helped come up with our favorite coffee, Mies van der Roast.

Thursday’s event will be held in the Hermann Hall Conference Center (the HUB).

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Apr, 25, 2011,
6:05 PM

“Neo-Miesian” awarded Pritzker Prize

Last month, Eduardo Souto de Moura was named the winner of the 2011 Pritzker Architecture Prize, regarded as the field’s highest honor. The award will be formally presented June 2 at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

In choosing Souto de Moura, the jury noted the role of Mies van der Rohe on the Portuguese architect’s work:

Often described as a “Miesian architect,” the jury acknowledged this influence with the words, “He has the confidence to use stone that is a thousand years old or to take inspiration from a modern detail by Mies van der Rohe.”

Souto de Moura designed the Estádio Municipal de Braga, site of the Euro 2004 soccer championship.  Read Blair Kamin’s article about this year’s award.

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Apr, 21, 2011,
3:07 PM

Design Directs Everything

Mark your calendars for the Architecture and Design Film Festival: Design Directs Everything.

The largest US film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design will feature a dynamic selection of feature length films, documentaries and shorts. Plus, there will be lively discussions with filmmakers, architects and designers about the design process, architecture in film, and the brilliant designs we see and use every day.

In addition to 39 films—curated into 15 programs—festival events include book signings, panel discussions, CAF tours in the new Audi A7, and a reading of The Glass House, June Finfer’s play about Farnsworth House.

The festival runs May 5-9, 2011. Screenings will take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center and at the intimate Screen@theWit. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

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Apr, 19, 2011,
5:40 PM

Summer Exhibition in Crown Hall

Despite the fickle nature of April weather in Chicago, we’re convinced that summer will be upon us before we know it. Which means it’s almost time for the Mies Society’s annual art exhibition in Crown Hall.

After the College of Architecture students have left for the summer, we uphold Crown Hall’s role as a “home of ideas and adventures” by hosting an annual art exhibition. This summer we will welcome two Chicago-based artists.

In June, we’ll see the work of Jeff Carter, whose scale models made from IKEA furniture replicate the Michael Reese Hospital buildings—designed by Bauhaus founder, Walter Gropius—that were demolished last year. This installation comments on IKEA’s marketing of design-centric living using products of limited durability and on how this concept both embraces and rejects tenets of Modernist ideology. Get a sneak peak from this Chicagoist article about Carter’s work.

In addition, an interactive installation by Christopher Furman’s Chicago Robotic Theater will tell a story about memory and decision-making in the wide-open space of Crown Hall—free from obstacles to memories, ideas, dreams, or nostalgia.  IIT students will collaborate with Furman to program the robots, and the exhibition’s parts will be fabricated in the university’s Idea Shop.

More details—and warmer weather—to come.


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