This holiday season, AIA Chicago has compiled a list of books by – or featuring – AIA Chicago members. This year’s book list offers a fresh collection of stunning monographs, along with a diverse range of perspectives—both literal, such as an 11-foot-long panorama of riverfront buildings, and figurative, spanning global celebrations of diversity to the story of a single chair. There’s even a children’s book to inspire the youngest of designers. Happy shopping!
AIA Guide to Chicago
Laurie McGovern Petersen editor
University of Illinois Press
Chicago’s architecture attracts visitors from around the globe. The fourth edition of the indispensable AIA Guide to Chicago includes, for the first time, a 32-page color supplement. The 80 color photos document styles from Italianate through Postmodernism and include a spread on quintessential Chicago housing types.
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Above and Across Chicago
Sam Landers, Michelle Fitzgerald, editors
Trope Publishing Company
Above & Across Chicago soars above the city to capture bird’s eye views in all seasons and atmospheric conditions. From cloud-shrouded skyscrapers to winding paths in the parks, the images evoke a sense of wonder. The minimal text puts the focus on the work of 15 photographers including Chicago-based designer Lichao Liu, Assoc. AIA.
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The Art of Architectural Grafting
Jeanne Gang, FAIA
University of Chicago Press
The didactic nature of The Art of Architectural Grafting by Jeanne Gang, FAIA is telegraphed by its cover-filling subtitle, of which the first half reads: Containing Rules for Extending Museums and Anonymous Buildings to Increase Their Usefulness and Delightfulness and Reduce Their Carbon Pollution. The book contains descriptions of horticultural grafting along with case studies of Studio Gang’s work.
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Chicago Reflected: A Skyline Drawing from the Chicago River
Ryan Chester, AIA
University of Chicago Press
Ryan Chester, AIA’s ambitious pandemic project, begun in March 2020, was to hand-draw each building on the Loop’s riverbanks stretching from the lake to River City. His 55-foot-long original has been scaled down to a still-impressive 11-foot-long two-sided accordion foldout. An accompanying booklet identifies each of the buildings (leaving the foldout unencumbered by text) and adds an essay by Thomas Dyja.
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Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City
Thomas Leslie, FAIA
University of Illinois Press
Thomas Leslie, FAIA continues to explore Chicago’s architectural narrative with Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986: How Technology, Politics, Finance, and Race Reshaped the City. Whereas his earlier volume about the 1871-1934 era focused on innovations in building materials and methods, the new book’s subtitle conveys a more wide-ranging treatment that includes the city’s political and economic landscape.
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Designing Dreams: An Official Deja the Dynamo Adventure
Andrea Martin, Sharla Toller, and Chris Whitcomb; illustrated by Jess Wier
CannonDesign
In a first for the firm, CannonDesign has released a children’s book. Designing Dreams: An Official Deja the Dynamo Adventure, aims to interest youth from all backgrounds in the fields of design and science. Young Deja and her friends discover the world of design thinking at Summer Science Camp. The character’s mother is a professional architect who provides guidance.
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First Additions: Strategies for Adding On
Stuart Cohen, FAIA, and Julie Hacker, FAIA
Oro Editions
The practice of expanding and transforming existing residential buildings is beautifully illustrated in Cohen and Hacker Architects’ First Additions: Strategies for Adding On. The work of Stuart Cohen, FAIA, and Julie Hacker, FAIA seamlessly extends the exterior of houses while updating their interior spaces by combining open floor plans with a traditional architectural vocabulary. Before-and-after floor plans clarify the interior transformations.
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Greatness: Diverse Designers of Architecture
Pascale Sablan, FAIA
Oro Editions
Greatness: Diverse Designers of Architecture by Pascale Sablan, FAIA, will be published in early 2025. Chicago’s Jeanne Gang, FAIA, will be included among international group of 47 contemporary architects and designers. The book will offer essays, case studies and designer profiles.
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Latinas in Architecture & Allies Vol. II: Stories of Raising the 1% One Latina at a Time
Alicia Ponce, AIA
Fig Factor Media Publishing
Latinas in Architecture and Allies Volume II: Stories of Raising the 1% One Latina at a Time is a follow-up by Alicia Ponce, AIA to her first collection of inspirational tales. Ponce established the nonprofit Arquitina.org to raise the percentage of licensed Latina architects in the United States above 1%. Ponce founded the Chicago-based firm APMonarch in 2007 with an emphasis on sustainability.
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Lost Danish Treasure
Carl D’Silva, FAIA
Oro Editions
If it is infrequent to devote a book to a single building, it is extremely rare to devote one to a single piece of furniture. Lost Danish Treasure by Carl J. D’Silva, FAIA intertwines the history of Finn Juhl’s iconic Chieftain Chair with those of the collectors chasing information about it. D’Silva’s auction-house discovery of the conceptual drawing of the chair in 2021 uncovered an origin story that had been lost to history.
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The Meaningful Modern Home
Celeste Robbins, AIA
The Monacelli Press
The residential practice of Celeste Robbins, AIA, is showcased in her first monograph, The Meaningful Modern Home: Soulful Architecture and Interiors. Eight of the nine featured projects have spectacular natural settings and exemplify Robbins’ holistic vision that integrates architecture, interior design and landscape. Her philosophy of modernism prioritizes warmth and livability.
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Modern Beyond Style and the Pursuit of Beauty
Jay Pridmore
Chicago Seven Press
The book Modern Beyond Style and the Pursuit of Beauty: Booth Hansen and the Architecture of Laurence Booth, by Jay Pridmore, provides a survey of Larry Booth, FAIA’s long and distinguished career. It illustrates the theory and application of the six tenets he has developed throughout his practice: System, Process, Spirit, Performance, Beauty, and Permanence.
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The People’s Architect: Carol Ross Barney
Carol Ross Barney, FAIA
Oscar Riera Ojeda, editor
The People’s Architect: Carol Ross Barney celebrates the work of the esteemed recipient of the 2023 AIA Gold Medal, Carol Ross Barney, FAIA. Chicagoans benefit from her lifelong dedication to civic infrastructure, from small L stations to the expansive riverwalk. Her belief that excellent design is a right rather than a privilege informs all aspects of the firm’s work.
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Performance + Assembly: The Experience of Space
Smith + Gill
Oro Editions
The firm of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture has a global practice that includes megaprojects such as supertalls and airports. Chicagoans can experience their more intimately scaled work in theater design by attending a performance in The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare or the addition to Steppenwolf Theatre. This facet of their work is highlighted in Performance + Assembly: The Experience of Space.
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The Salt Shed
Sandra Steinbrecher
Trope Publishing Company
An unusual hiding-in-plain sight project, involving both performance space and adaptive reuse, is thoroughly documented in The Salt Shed (Sandra Steinbrecher, author and photographer). The Morton Salt Warehouse, built in 1929, continues to be an iconic presence along the Kennedy Expressway with its repainted Morton Salt Girl mural. The disused warehouse was deconstructed and rebuilt as a live music venue by a team that included Lamar Johnson Collaborative and the late Aric Lasher, FAIA of HBRA Architects.
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The Wall
Paul Krieger, AIA
Oxford Book Writers
There are very few novels with architect protagonists—aside from those about Frank Lloyd Wright—and even fewer written by architects. The Wall, by Paul Krieger, AIA is set in Cold War-era Berlin and it adds espionage and romance to the challenges of altering the architect’s previous project that straddles the Berlin wall.
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This list of publications was compiled based on an open call for submissions in the AIA Chicago eNews on October 28, November 12, and November 25, 2024. Publications included are authored/edited by, or feature AIA Chicago members and have been published and made available for purchase within the past three years.
