The Chicago Architecture Foundation (CAF) has recently announced plans to build the Chicago Architecture Center (CAC). The 20,000-sf building will showcase Chicago’s architectural legacy and how it has helped to shape cities around the world.
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) will design the facility set for construction at 111 East Wacker Drive. The modern building will be located on the Chicago River, just above the dock for the Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise.
Visitors will enter the CAC and be greeted at a tour orientation center on the ground level. They will then be taken on an expert, docent-led tour or move on to view exhibition spaces designed by Local Projects, an exhibition and media design studio.
“We want the CAC’s exhibitions to actively engage audiences and encourage them to keep digging into the many stories and insights we have to share about architecture,” said Local Projects founder Jake Barton in a release.
Courtesy of CAF.
The CAC will comprise almost 10,000-sf of exhibition space that will house an expanded, interactive and digitally enhanced Chicago City Model Experience that will tell the story of Chicago. A City of Neighborhoods Gallery will focus on the varied stories of Chicago’s neighborhoods. Chicago is often considered the birthplace of the skyscraper, as such, the history of Chicago’s skyscrapers will be on full display in a permanent Tall Buildings and Innovation exhibit. This exhibit, located in a 26-foot, double-height exhibition space dubbed the Skyscrape Gallery, will tell the stories of famous skyscrapers in Chicago and around the world. The exhibits will include 3D, scale models, including the world’s largest 3D Chicago model as part of the Chicago City Model Experience. There will also be rotating temporary exhibits on display throughout the year.
In addition to the exhibition space, the CAC will include a lecture hall, a hands-on design studio, new retail space for the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s shop, and office space for the 70 CAF employees stationed in the new building. The design studio will host programs and classes for children and adults. Programs will include expanded scholarship-based summer camps for middle school students, a STEM-based program for girls, and free family festivals.
CAF is currently in the silent phase of a campaign to raise $10 million to establish the center and to expand education and public programs. The CAC is scheduled to open in summer 2018.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, HDR top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest institutional building design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 Institutional Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
Museums | Aug 11, 2010
Design guidelines for museums, archives, and art storage facilities
This column diagnoses the three most common moisture challenges with museums, archives, and art storage facilities and provides design guidance on how to avoid them.
| Aug 11, 2010
Museum celebrates African-American heritage
The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture recently completed construction on the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus in Charlotte, N.C. Designed by the Freelon Group, Durham, N.C., with Batson-Cook's Atlanta office as project manager, the $18.8 million project achieved nearly 100% minority participation.
| Aug 11, 2010
Design for Miami Art Museum triples gallery space
Herzog & de Meuron has completed design development for the Miami Art Museum’s new complex, which will anchor the city’s 29-acre Museum Park, overlooking Biscayne Bay. At 120,000 sf with 32,000 sf of gallery space, the three-story museum will be three times larger than the current facility.
| Aug 11, 2010
Thom Mayne unveils ‘floating cube’ design for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Calling it a “living educational tool featuring architecture inspired by nature and science,” Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne unveiled the schematic designs and building model for the Perot Museum of Nature & Science at Victory Park in Dallas. The $185 million, 180,000-sf structure is 170 feet tall—equivalent to approximately 14 stories—and is conceived as a large...
| Aug 11, 2010
Piano's 'Flying Carpet'
Italian architect Renzo Piano refers to his $294 million, 264,000-sf Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a “temple of light.” That's all well and good, but how did Piano and the engineers from London-based Arup create an almost entirely naturally lit interior while still protecting the priceless works of art in the Institute's third-floor galleries from dangerous ultravio...
| Aug 11, 2010
The Art of Reconstruction
The Old Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C., completed in 1867, houses two Smithsonian Institution museums—the National Portrait Gallery and the American Art Museum. Collections include portraits of all U.S. presidents, along with paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings of numerous historic figures from American history, and the works of more than 7,000 American artists.
| Aug 11, 2010
Silver Award: Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall Philadelphia, Pa.
Built in 1875 to serve as the art gallery for the Centennial International Exhibition in Fairmount Park, Memorial Hall stands as one of the great civic structures in Philadelphia. The neoclassical building, designed by Fairmount Park Commission engineer Hermann J. Schwarzmann, was one of the first buildings in America to be designed according to the principles of the Beaux Arts movement.
