Blair Kamin: On a course very different from Chicago’s, triathletes race in the footsteps of pioneers
The triathlon celebrated its 50th anniversary in San Diego this year.
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Blair Kamin: How do we achieve equity-driven urban design in Chicago? The city’s future depends on it.
One of the great pleasures of my 28-year run as the Chicago Tribune's architecture critic was seeing how wrong the artist of Millennium Park's Crown Fountain got it. The artist,...
Blair Kamin: This weekend’s 5K and marathon allow us to take in Chicago’s magnificent cityscape
On Saturday, the day before the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, I'll join thousands of other runners on a moving tour of Chicago's built topography: the cliff of historical high-rises...
Op-ed: My late parents’ Colonial home will be torn down, Blair Kamin writes. It’s like dealing with a third death.
Even after my mother died in July, nearly six years after my father passed away, their house was still there — a two-story, white-columned Colonial, with a Century House medallion...
Column: Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin reflects on 28 years of reviewing Chicago’s wonders and blunders, and why such coverage should continue
When I became the Tribune's architecture critic in 1992, there was no Millennium Park, no Museum Campus and no downtown Riverwalk. Hulking public housing high-rises stood at Cabrini-Green. Sears Tower...
Column: Chicagoans of the Year in architecture: The team that helped revive old Cook County Hospital
The rebirth of old Cook County Hospital, which once had a near-death experience, would have been worth celebrating in any year. But it took on special meaning in 2020, as...
Column: 10 ways architecture may change Chicago in 2021, the Year of the Question Mark
Writing an architecture and urban design preview for 2021 is an exercise in guesswork. With vaccine distribution in its initial stages and city centers still largely shut down, firm opening...
Column: From the Great Fire to modernist houses to Jeanne Gang, a rich array of design books for the holidays
Chicago isn't just an architectural capital because of its great buildings. It's a vital forum of ideas about what makes architecture great. A case in point: this year's crop of...
Chicago architecture in 2020: In a year like no other, anxiety soared about the future of downtown Chicago, but so did new skyscrapers
Ten days after the Great Chicago Fire destroyed 18,000 buildings and left about 90,000 people homeless, architect John M. Van Osdel set up shop in the Nixon Block, a downtown...
Best Chicago architecture of 2020: The design of St. Regis Chicago, a new bridge and the pandemic-ready Rush Hospital raised our sights and spirits
Even as COVID-19 upended, and ended, lives, architecture raised our sights and spirits. Here are the year's best projects from Chicago. 1. The St. Regis Chicago, the city's third tallest...