Parkitecture is about how to raise the bar on architecture and design to once again help restore Chicago's world prominence in architecture by being bold and visionary focusing on Grant Park. It is about how to create the architectural landmarks and masterpieces of tomorrow in and around Grant Park.
Parkitecture is a regular ongoing series of panel discussions and public input forums about architecture and design in and around Grant Park. These architecture and landscape design forums feature officials from all relevant City of Chicago departments, the Chicago Park District, architects, designers, professors, urban planners, developers, community leaders and the public to encourage high quality innovative design of the new Grant Park buildings facing the park as well as the structures and landscaping within in it.
The city recently designated the "west street wall" of Grant Park along Michigan Avenue the Historic Michigan Boulevard District a landmark.Many of the older buildings, which are land marked today, were once very cutting edge, for example Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building. We want to work with the city and developers and architects to persuade them that the buildings around Grant Park need to respect the past and what is there contextually but truly embrace cutting edge and innovative design which will create tomorrow's landmarks. Grant Park is just too important not to be surrounded by truly world-class architecture. With the explosion of development around Grant Park, this is very timely.
The city recently designated the "west street wall" of Grant Park along Michigan Avenue the Historic Michigan Boulevard District a landmark.Many of the older buildings, which are land marked today, were once very cutting edge, for example Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan's Auditorium Building. We want to work with the city and developers and architects to persuade them that the buildings around Grant Park need to respect the past and what is there contextually but truly embrace cutting edge and innovative design which will create tomorrow's landmarks. Grant Park is just too important not to be surrounded by truly world-class architecture. With the explosion of development around Grant Park, this is very timely.
The south “Street Wall" of Grant Park - the completely undeveloped and not-yet-designed last blank canvas on Roosevelt Road facing Grant Park - currently empty land all along Roosevelt Road. This will be the last row of buildings framing Grant Park. The design of the building walls is crucial as it will be one of the most visible walls of buildings in the city. The impact on Grant Park and architecture in Chicago will be immense. This south Street Wall along Roosevelt Road may be the single most important and visible development site in Chicago; it deserves great care and input into its design by the community, the architects, planners, the developers and the City of Chicago.
It will take substantial effort, brainstorming, creative thinking to effectuate real, positive input into the plans for buildings facing Grant Park this property. However the extraordinary prominence of this site and its potential for having a positive impact on the urban fabric of the South Loop, Museum Campus, andGrant Park demands that we try and succeed.
