Blair Kamin

"No other American city [than Chicago] is quite so proficient at building landmarks and destroying them. There is, accordingly, no better place to witness the bare-bones beauty of architecture, either as it is rising up or being torn down." (180)

Blair Kamin's Who Is the City For? is his third collection of architecture criticism columns from the Chicago Tribune, covering the decade leading up to the writer's departure from the newspaper in 2021. Since I was absent from the Chicago area for the period from 2015-2022, this book offered me not only insight and informed opinion, but genuine news about architectural developments during that time. The contents are organized around large themes: the impact of US presidents and Chicago mayors, urbanism, social equity, and historic preservation.

I was excited to learn about new parks and skyscrapers, the progress of transit infrastructure, and the ongoing development of the riverwalk. There were also a few retrospectives, even outside of the section about "historical" concerns: columns about the Lake Point Tower and the Museum of Contemporary Art offered decades of background.

The preservation section is the one that spends the most attention out of the city proper and in the larger metropolitan area, with treatments of an Evanston mansion, the Unity Temple in Oak Park, and even Farnsworth House in Peoria. But these pieces are still outnumbered by those concerned with the restorations and removals in Chicago itself. Another informative suburban article concerned a cannabis dispensary in Glenview.

Each column is given a single-paragraph postscript to bring the reader up to date (2022) on relevant decisions and events since the original newspaper publication. There is also a good amount of black-and-white photography, mostly from Sun-Times editorialist Lee Bey. I never had to set the book down and turn to the 'net for images of the buildings and spaces that Kamin described, the photos were sufficient. But of course no book illustration is a substitute for experiencing architecture in person, and now knowing about these changes in our built environment, I'm eager to visit more of them than the handful I have already encountered.… (altro)