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The Future of the Netsch Campus Fall 2015 – Spring 2019

When it opened in January 1965, the Netsch Campus at then-University of Illinois Chicago Circle was a new model of public urban education. In pointed contradistinction to the pastoral forms of the traditionally rural public university, exemplified by Jefferson’s University of Virginia, Walter Netsch and his team from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) sought to materialize this new model through alternative forms of urban and architectural design. Conceptualized as a pebble dropped in a pond–aka “the drop of water scheme”–representing “knowledge spreading out,” the dense inner rings of campus contained the shared lecture halls and classroom buildings, flanked by the library and the student union, while outer rings contained discipline-specific buildings. The campus was connected throughout by raised walkways–human highways designed for a projected enrollment of 32,000 students within five years–that came together in a great public amphitheater called the Circle Forum at the literal and conceptual center. Hailed by the architectural press as a spectacular example of Brutalism, its reception on campus was decidedly more ambivalent.

Diagrammatic Campus Plan, c1961 View of the Center of Campus, c1964 000-20-01.001, Photograph Subject File 086.Cabanban-20227.26, Photograph Subject File Both courtesy of the University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago Library

In the 1990s, the campus was irrevocably transformed by the addition of dormitories at the northeast corner and by the removal of the walkways and central amphitheater; reasons for the demolition included a lack of maintenance, a lack of accessibility, a perception of danger, and a lack of “green.” All of these issues were solvable, but the University chose not to do so. In 2015, upon the arrival of a new Chancellor with an ambitious agenda that included new buildings, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) began to plan new additions and renovations to the campus. While some of these are excellent, such as the transformation of an abandoned Com Ed substation site into a new collective lawn and the restoration of University Hall, not all are appropriately cognizant of its important history.

My involvement in the future of the Netsch Campus emerged from my research and teaching expertise focused on the relationship between architecture and urban design, here understood as architecture/campus/city. Combining that expertise with my role as Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts (CADA), I leveraged a potential new arts building for the College to advance discussion about the future of architecture and urban design at UIC, particularly within the context of the core design principles of the original Netsch Campus. My initiative had two fundamentally interconnected parts. The first was a pair of design competitions that I proposed and developed–one internal, the other international–which culminated in May 2019 with the selection of OMA/KOO as the winning team in ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p2 of 20 the international design competition for a new Center for the Arts for the University. The second was a series of tandem educational opportunities that I either developed or enabled for architecture students and faculty; for the wider campus public, including the University’s executive administrators; and for the city at large. Collectively, these initiatives provoked a city-wide conversation about the future of the architecture and urban design of UIC for the first time in decades.

Project Contents and Audiences

1. Internal Design Competition for Visual and Performing Arts Center College and University p3 Gallery 400 Exhibitions University and public p5 MAS Context Presentation University and public p9

2. Design Studios for Residence Halls School of Architecture p10

3. International Design Competition for Center for the Arts University and public p12 Presentations by finalist firms University and public p13 “Public Performances” Symposium University and public p19

Harrison Field, project site for International Design Competition. Photograph by Judith De Jong.

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Internal Design Competition for Visual and Performing Arts Center August 18, 2015 – November 16, 2015 CADA Kick-Off: Tuesday September 22, 2015 Presentation to Chancellor and Cabinet, Dean, Directors, and Campus Architect: Monday December 7, 2015, 8:30am Presentation to VPAC Working Group: Monday December 7, 2015, 10:30am

In Spring 2015, at the behest of then College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts (CADA) Dean Steve Everett, Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC) led a pre-design and programming phase with a working group of representative faculty and staff to determine an overall scope and program for a Visual and Performing Arts Center (VPAC) that would house both the School of Theatre and Music and the School of Art and Art History. The results of the work included overall space lists, adjacency diagrams, and a workbook of precedent performance spaces for a 326,500 square foot building that would include a 700 seat concert hall, a 150 seat recital hall, a 300 seat flexible main stage theatre, and a 100 seat black box theatre. The University’s Office of Capital Planning and Management assigned a pre-approved retainer architect to produce a basic concept design based on the TPC study, from which a concept design price could be estimated, and from which images could be developed for fundraising for the project.

My involvement was peripheral until I was invited to attend a late-in-the-process working session with TPC and the retainer architect, at the end of which I made two recommendations to the Dean. In the short term, I recommended we stage an internal design competition for the concept design with teams of architecture and design faculty. As state employees, they were likely ineligible for the actual project with the University. However, we could engage their substantial expertise to develop concept design proposals that would communicate the conceptual ambitions of the project–which to date had been largely ignored; shape discourse about the project; and produce compelling imagery for fundraising. In the long term, I recommended we use what we learned through the internal design competition to launch an international design competition, should we be allowed to do so under the University’s procurement rules–a big if. Soon thereafter, the Dean released me to prepare the internal Request for Qualifications. I wrote a brief to accompany the TPC material; issued the RFQ to the faculty; organized a selection committee comprised of Dean Steve Everett, SoA Director Robert Somol, SoA Acting Director Paul Preissner, SoA Associate Director David Brown, and me; and coordinated the overall initiative. Three teams were chosen from eight faculty applications, and a kick-off discussion between those teams and Theatre Projects, open to everyone in the College, was held on Tuesday September 22nd at the Innovation Center.

The brief was an opportunity to establish the larger conceptual goals of the project and to situate the TPC program document within that framework. Using the School Directors’ vision statement as a point of departure, the brief asked the teams to conceptualize an architecturally significant visual and performing arts center that would broadcast the ambitions of the College as a whole; to engage new and existing audiences; to organize a new arts campus by designing relationships to existing CADA spaces in seven buildings near-by; to test the program document in relation to the conceptual goals; and to test phasing strategies, as it seemed highly likely the project would not be realized all at once. The complex urban site–at the time a parking lot–was another key challenge; a full city block, with a northern edge defined by a major highway/El line and the rapidly-developing West Loop and a southern edge adjacent to the historic Netsch Campus, it is a critical bridge between campus and city. Moreover, the highly visible site had five sides.

The faculty did not disappoint. On December 7th, the teams presented to the new Chancellor and his Executive Cabinet, the Dean, School Directors, the Campus Architect, and key members of the Office of Capital Programs and Project Management, followed by a presentation to/discussion with the VPAC Working Group. For the first time, the full opportunity and vision that architecture could imagine for this project and its relationship to both campus and city became vivid. ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p4 of 20

The Center: Gateway, Hub, Incubator

Sarah Dunn | Associate Professor, UIC School of Architecture; Principal, UrbanLab Kelly Bair | Assistant Professor, UIC School of Architecture; Principal, Central Standard Office of Design Maya Nash | Adjunct Assistant Professor, UIC School of Architecture (MArch ’11, BS in Mathematics ’03, UIC) Cheryl Towler Weese | Associate Professor, UIC School of Design; Principal, Studio Blue With UrbanLab: Martin Felsen, Jeff Macias, Matt Busscher (MArch ’15, UIC), Aishwarya Keshav, Yue Li, and Joe Perry (MArch ’19, UIC) UIC School of Architecture: Caylen Doyle (BSArch ’17), Alejandra Edery-Ferre (BSArch ’17), Ruta Misiunas (BSArch ’17), and Tom Pytel (BSArch ’16) Studio Blue: J. Brad Sturm and Silja Hillmann

Arts Performance Center

Sam Jacob | Clinical Professor, UIC School of Architecture; Principal, Sam Jacob Studio Alexander Eisenschmidt | Assistant Professor, UIC School of Architecture; Partner, Offshore Mischa Leiner | MDes Faculty, UIC School of Design and HGK Basel; Principal, CoDe With Webb Yates Engineers

Play

Andrew Zago | Clinical Professor, UIC School of Architecture; Principal, Zago Architecture Sarah Blankenbaker | Clinical Assistant Professor, UIC School of Architecture Sharon Oiga | Associate Professor, UIC School of Design; Principal, Sharon Oiga Design With Zago Architecture: Laura Bouwman, Andrew Adzemovic, Nan Yen Chen Begum Baysun, Kazuhiro Okamoto, Shao Wen Tou, and Linbo Xie. Arup Los Angeles: Bruce Danziger, Russell Fortmeyer, Daniel Kim, Matthew Wilkinson, and Toshiyasu Yoza. Sharon Oiga Design: Guy Villa. ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p5 of 20

Back to the Future: Visualizing the Arts at UIC and The Netsch Campus: Materializing the Public at UIC Gallery 400, August 10 – 27, 2016 Public Reception: Thursday August 18, 2016, 5pm Panel Discussion with faculty teams: Friday August 26, 2016, 3pm

In the midst of the internal design competition, I began to work with Lorelei Stewart, Director of Gallery 400, and her staff to curate a pair of public exhibitions that connected the VPAC proposals to a new history of the campus. While extensive historical work had been done by others, including former faculty Sharon Haar and Robert Bruegmann, I reframed that history through the lens of projects for the arts, reinforced by my discovery of a previously unknown original watercolor rendering of Project Y, a massive “secret” arts complex for UIC by Netsch that was never built. While Haar and Bruegmann had heard of the project, neither knew about the rendering; meanwhile, the UIC Archives had the rendering but did not know what it was of. In addition, I located an orientation film made for UIC’s first students in 1965, and had it combined with a video celebrating Walter Netsch in 2008, and included newly acquired Netsch watercolor “sketches” that he developed in parallel to his UIC Field Theory buildings. I also wrote two essays for a catalog that accompanied the exhibition. During the course of the show, Gallery 400 recorded 894 attendees, of which 344 were UIC students who attended as part of a class.

Photograph by Tom Van Eynde

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Continuing a long architectural history of projecting possible futures, Back to the Future: Visualizing the Arts at UIC presented three speculative architectural proposals intended to provoke discourse about the future of the arts at the University of Illinois at Chicago and its relationship to the city. Through architectural diagrams and drawings, all re- interpreted design principles of the Walter Netsch UIC campus to imagine a new arts site that centered currently dispersed academic programs and made visible the creative and educational processes of thinking and making in the visual and performing arts. These proposals suggested ways architecture can broadcast the ambitions of UIC to be recognized as a nexus of innovation in arts and cultural production and a major public arts destination in the city.

Photograph by Tom Van Eynde Photograph by Tom Van Eynde

Photograph by Tom Van Eynde Photograph by Judith De Jong

Chancellor Michael Amiridis (center) at opening reception Provost Susan Poser (center) at opening reception ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p7 of 20

Presaging the 50th anniversary of the 1967 opening of the UIC Architecture and Art Building, The Netsch Campus: Materializing the Public at UIC revisited architect Walter Netsch’s vision of a new model for an urban public university, for which architecture and art were both anchor and future, and reaffirmed the campus’ continuing importance as a symbol of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s urban public mission. Urban and architectural diagrams by Netsch’s Skidmore, Owings and Merrill team, original watercolor “sketches” by Netsch, and black and white photography by Orlando Cabanban of the completed buildings and campus traced the evolution of this new model from ideas to built form, provoking a renewed understanding and appreciation of the urban and architectural design of the campus.

Photograph by Tom Van Eynde

Watercolor “sketches” of Field Theory Photograph by Judith De Jong Photograph by Tom Van Eynde ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p8 of 20

Film still of Walter Netsch, 1965. Photograph by Tom Van Eynde Film still of Walter Netsch, 2008. Photograph by Judith De Jong

Rendering of Project Y, c1967 000-20-01.013, Walter Netsch Collection Courtesy University Archives, University of Illinois at Chicago Library

Co-curators: Judith K. De Jong and Lorelei Stewart, Director of Gallery 400 Graphic designer: Amir Berbic, Professor of Graphic Design With Gallery 400: Karen Greenwalt, Devin Malone, Erin Nixon, Prasann Patel, Kyle Schlie, Anthony Stepter, Alisa Swindell, Alex Tam, Pinar Uner Yilmaz, Chloe Cucinotta, Ricardo Garcia, Jackie Guataquira, Lissette Martinez, and Samuel Snodgrass. CADA: Steve Everett, Annabelle Clarke, Brianna Clementz, Julie Duignan, Christine Dunford, Oliver Ionita, Marcia Lausen, Lisa Lee, Paul Preissner, Sarah Ritch, and Robert Somol. Roberta Dupuis-Devlin, UIC Photo Services; Scott Pitol, UIC Archivist; Karen Widi, SOM Archivist; Sharon Haar, Andrew Jennings, and Juan Suarez.

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The Netsch Campus: Materializing the Public at UIC MAS Context “Analog” Event The Joinery, October 21, 2017

Based on the exhibition, I was asked to present a talk on the Netsch Campus at MAS Context’s “Analog,” a full-day event held as part of Chicago Design Week in October 2017.

Event: http://www.mascontext.com/events/mas-context-analog-chicago-2017/mas-context-analog-chicago-2017-2/

De Jong Presentation: http://www.mascontext.com/events/mas-context-analog-chicago-2017/mas-context-analog-2017-judith-de-jong/

Photograph by Iker Gil

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School of Architecture Design Studios for Residence Halls Spring 2018 and Spring 2019

A primary current building initiative for UIC is new residence halls, the first of which began construction in January 2018 and opened in August 2019. Initially proposed for a conceptually critical open space in the middle of the core Netsch Campus (!!!), I and a handful of others successfully argued for it to be moved to another site. This experience was a key impetus for the University’s decision to update the master plan: https://cppm.uic.edu/planning/2018- implementation-plan/ In parallel to the University’s masterplan process, I taught a pair of fourth year undergraduate option studios that re-imagined the residence hall in the context of an architecturally important campus. During both studios, I engaged UIC’s Campus Architect David Taeyaerts and Assistant Director Jonathan Fair in reviews, both to expose students to a “client’s” perspective, as well as to present imaginative projects to the Campus Architect’s office.

Final models by Exmeralda Flores-Peleaz, Oscar Guzman-Franco and Julian Gonzalez, and Donovan Aranda

The Spring 2018 studio was entitled “Context, or, When is Brown?” It argued all disciplinary work is contextual, because it operates within cultural, intellectual, formal, spatial, and material histories, among others. Thus it is not whether context matters, rather, which contexts matter most? UIC’s core campus, designed by Walter Netsch and his team at SOM, is situated within a set of critical disciplinary contexts, including: Chicago’s urban grid and material history; the history of American campus design, the primary trajectory of which emerged from Thomas Jefferson’s pastoral University of Virginia; Modernist urban design principles; Greek amphitheaters; Brutalism; and Netsch’s own Field Theory. The design also responded to more pragmatic contexts, including easy transportation access, a low budget, and a request to be as maintenance-free as possible. Given the architectural and urban significance of the campus, understanding and prioritizing these myriad contexts is essential to contemporary proposals for its growth.

The dormitory as a housing typology is also culturally situated; in particular, it originally referred to a focus on small, often-spartan, sleeping rooms for one or two people, with large, shared bathrooms, such as in monasteries, hostels, and schools. In the recent past, many American universities have moved their student housing–now called residence halls–towards more luxurious “suite” living, with sets of sleeping rooms organized around shared bathrooms (and sometimes common space). However, while today’s students overwhelmingly say they prefer their own room, they also report high rates of alienation and loneliness. As a result, many universities are re-thinking residence halls to emphasize collective life. Since UIC was initially designed as a commuter school, student housing was gradually added onto and nearby the core campus, each version reflecting a different moment in the history of how students live.

To begin the studio, students worked in small teams to research and analyze the critical contexts–disciplinary and otherwise–that situated and formed key American university campuses: the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. (1825-26), by Thomas Jefferson; Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL. (1938-58), by Mies van der Rohe; the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL. (1965-72), by SOM (Walter Netsch); and the University of Cincinnati, ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p11 of 20

Cincinnati, OH (1919; 1991-present), masterplan by Hargreaves and Associates. Simultaneously, students worked individually to research and analyze important housing projects, including towers (eg: Roosevelt U’s Wabash Building, 2012, VOA), bars (eg: Wozoco, 1997, MVRDV), and courtyards (eg: Sainte Marie de La Tourette, 1960, Le Corbusier). Students subsequently built on this catalog of analysis to individually re-envision the residence hall as a catalyst for new ways and forms of collective living within the context of the Netsch Campus at UIC.

The Spring 2019 studio, entitled “Extending Netsch,” was a version of the first; however, its point of departure was team work reimagining the University masterplan prior to individual proposals. Here, too, I engaged the Campus Architect’s office. Work from this studio by Julian Gonzalez won an Alumni Choice Award in the 2019 Year End Show.

Spring 2018 Year End Show projects by Exmeralda Flores-Peleaz and Dalton Kay (on wall). All student models on table.

Left: Spring 2019 Final Review for Nicholas Porte with critics Iker Gil (MAS Studio), Julia DiCastri (University of Toronto) and David Taeyaerts (UIC Campus Architect). Right: Spring 2019 Year End Show Alumni Choice Award (Graduating Student) for Julian Gonzalez (center).

SoA Students 2018: Donovan Aranda, Sergio Bahena, Dennis Cuadrado, Christian Encarnacion, Exmeralda Flores-Pelaez, June Gudoor, Dalton Kay, Julia Lobdell, U Kei Long, Ye Lyu, Rad Mika, and Jordan Rife. SoA Students 2019: Patricia Almazon, Emilio Balderas, Chloe Eom, Katherine Denemark, Eugenia Dittmar, Julian Gonzalez, Oscar Guzman-Franco, Erick Nunez, Nicholas Porte, Diego Steven Rivera, Jamia Smith, and Yanlin Yang.

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International Design Competition for Center for the Arts January 15, 2019 – March 22, 2019

The final step of the internal competition was to have one of the concept design proposals priced by Cost+Plus, a cost estimating firm with particular expertise in performing arts and other cultural facilities. Given the enormous overall size of the program and the technical complexity of the four performance spaces, it was completely predictable that the concept design pricing estimate was quite high. Although I was already working closely with William Bradford, Associate Director of the Office of Capital Planning and Project Management (OCPPM), he was my most important partner in the process moving forward. Working from a program-based cost matrix that Bill generated from the Cost+Plus estimate, Dean Everett, Bill, and I met with the Directors of the Schools of Theatre and Music and Art and Art History to develop a priority space list for a smaller budget. Based on that priority document, the original TPC program, and the Cost+Plus estimate, I backed out a new itemized space list and new adjacency diagrams for a substantially smaller Center for the Arts. Focused primarily, but not exclusively, on performing arts, the new program included a vineyard-style concert hall and a flexible main stage theatre as the primary performance spaces. In addition, the Campus Architect moved the site from the former Lot 9 parking lot one block east to Harrison Field, creating an even more high-profile and complex site condition.

At the same time, Bill was researching if we could do an international design competition within the context of the University’s required Qualification Based System (QBS), a highly structured and regulated public procurement process administered through Bill’s office. We found we could do so by 1) requiring a pre-qualified Illinois-based firm as the prime, meaning non-Illinois-based firms would need to partner; and 2) adding an additional step to the existing process by interviewing a long-list, from which the selection committee could choose a short-list of three teams for the concept design work. Final selection would come from that group of three. With that news, Dean Everett secured the funding for the competition from Provost Susan Poser, and in consultation with Bill, I wrote the customizable parts of an RFQ that was issued in November, 2017. The opening paragraph of the RFQ made our ambitions clear: “The University of Illinois at Chicago is seeking professional services teams to design an architecturally significant Center for the Arts–the program for which currently includes a main stage theatre and a concert hall–that serves as a gateway and bridge between UIC and the world, and as a destination for innovative arts and cultural production. The Center for the Arts is proposed for a site located at the northwest corner of Halsted and Harrison Streets (commonly known as Harrison Field), Chicago, IL. The Concept Design Competition Phase will produce compelling conceptual and visual material that provokes discussion about the roles of arts, design, and architectural production in contemporary culture, represents the cutting-edge work of the Schools in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts (CADA), and signals CADA’s ambition to “become the nation’s premiere college for education in the arts, design, and architecture.”

Thirty six international teams submitted qualifications, ten were interviewed, and three were selected for the competition: Johnston Marklee / UrbanWorks, Morphosis / STL, and OMA / KOO. Each team was provided with the materials I produced, including a revised brief (expanded from the internal competition), as well as the TPC precedent work, and site documentation including a 3d campus masterplan file. The competition kicked off in mid-January, 2019: https://today.uic.edu/architectural-teams-named-finalists-in-design-competition-for-new-performing-arts-center-at-uic

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Competition Presentations Presentation to Chancellor, Provost, and Executive Cabinet: Wednesday April 3, 2019, 9am Public Presentation: Wednesday April 3, 2019, 1:30pm

On Wednesday April 3, 2019, the teams made a morning presentation to the Chancellor, Provost, Executive Cabinet, and School of Theatre and Music leadership. That afternoon, they made a public presentation to an audience of more than 300 students, faculty, staff, and community members. The audience asked lively questions, many of which came from students, and a website was provided by OCPPM to allow for public feedback (now closed). Sixty-six people submitted comments, including 43 students, faculty and staff, and 23 community members.

Public Presentation from OMA / KOO In the Illinois Room. Mark Lee, Shohei Shigematsu, and Thom Mayne.

For a typical campus project, the wider campus public is not involved. As a result, for the non-architects in each audience, it was a rare opportunity to experience how the same set of conceptual, programmatic, and site requirements could produce three distinct architectural approaches and results; the remarkably high level of thought being conveyed in the work was universally acknowledged. Given continuing ambivalence about the architecture of the core campus, a particularly critical aspect was for audiences to see the varying degrees to which the teams interpreted principles of the historic Netsch Campus in their projects, showing that one can respect and advance its important history while proposing projects whose form is very different. Furthermore, it was instructive for both audiences to experience the different approaches to the presentations themselves; some were more collaborative, some were more comprehensive, some were more conceptual, some were more pragmatic, and so on. Multiple attendees acknowledged that the quality of the presentations impacted their overall understanding and views of the work. For me and many of my SoA colleagues, this was an added teaching opportunity; in our next class sessions, we had conversations about not only the work itself, but also the effectiveness (or not) of how it was presented.

While the most significant coverage for the competition and ultimate selection occurred in the architectural media, there was also press across a wide variety of outlets, including real estate and general interest (see page 18). In a sign of how engaged the broader public was in the discussion, Curbed Chicago ran an article with a poll, in which over 2,500 people throughout the city voted for their favorite of the three projects: https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/4/9/18301074/uic-architecture-center-for-the-arts-design-competition

CADA: Walter Benn Michaels, Judith De Jong, Julie Duignan, and Sarah Ritch. OCPPM: Bill Bradford, Shelby Egan, Beate Pac, and Peter Drezek. UIC Office of Public and Government Affairs: Carlos Sadovi ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p14 of 20

The final decision by the selection committee was reached in consultation with university, college, and school leadership. The selection committee consisted of William Bradford, AIA, Associate Director of the Office of Capital Planning and Project Management at UIC; Judith De Jong, RA, Associate Dean of CADA; Fernando Howell, Director of the Office of Capital Planning and Project Management at UIC; Qu Kim, RA, Assistant Director of Construction Capital Programs for the University of Illinois System; John Syvertson, FAIA, member of the UIC Design Review Committee; and David Taeyaerts, AIA, UIC Campus Architect. The final press release was issued May 15, 2019: https://today.uic.edu/oma-koo-win-uics-center-for-the-arts-design-competition

OMA / KOO / Arup Images by OMA / KOO

Aerial view of Center for the Arts, looking from campus to the West Loop.

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Johnston Marklee / UrbanWorks / Schuler Shook / Threshold Acoustics Images by Johnston Marklee / UrbanWorks

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Morphosis / STL / Arup Images by Morphosis / STL

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Select Citations

Justine Testado, “Three top-notch architecture teams to compete for UIC's new Center for the Arts,” Archinect, January 17, 2019. https://archinect.com/news/bustler/7060/three-top-notch-architecture-teams-to-compete-for-uic-s- new-center-for-the-arts

Jamie Evelyn Goldsborough, “I See You, UIC: Finalists revealed for new arts center at University of Illinois at Chicago,” The Architect’s Newspaper, April 4, 2019. https://archpaper.com/2019/04/university-of-illinois-at-chicago-arts- centerfinalists/#gallery-0-slide-0

Zach Mortice, “Proposals for New Building at UIC Contend with Walter Netsch’s Brutalist Campus,” Architectural Record, April 8, 2019. https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/14006-proposals-for-new-building-at-uic-contend- with-walter-netschs-brutalist-campus

Jay Koziarz, “UIC announces three finalists teams to design $95M performing arts center,” Curbed Chicago, April 9, 2019. https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/4/9/18301074/uic-architecture-center-for-the-arts-design-competition

Eric Baldwin, “OMA, Morphosis and Johnston Marklee Among Finalists for New Chicago Arts Center,” ArchDaily, April 10, 2019. https://www.archdaily.com/914739/oma-morphosis-and-johnston-marklee-among-finalists-for-new-chicago- arts-center

Rebecca Holland, “Johnston Marklee, Morphosis Architects, and OMA Named Finalists for UIC Arts Center Project.” Architectural Digest, April 17, 2019. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/johnston-marklee-morphosis-architects- and-oma-named-finalists-for-uic-arts-center-project

AN Editors, “OMA-gosh: Winner revealed for University of Illinois at Chicago arts building competition,” Architect’s Newspaper, May 15, 2019. https://archpaper.com/2019/05/university-of-illinois-at-chicago-arts-building-competition- winner-oma-koo-architects/#gallery-0-slide-0

Jay Koziarz, “UIC selects OMA and KOO to design $95M performing arts center,” Curbed Chicago, May 16, 2019. https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/5/16/18627688/uic-architecture-performing-arts-center-oma-koo-design- competition

Mike Kennedy, “Architects chosen for $94.5 million arts center at University of Illinois at Chicago,” American School and University, May 16, 2019. https://www.asumag.com/facility-planning/architects-chosen-945-million-arts-center- university-illinois-chicago

John Hill, “OMA & KOO @ UIC,” World-Architects, May 17, 2019. https://www.world-architects.com/en/architecture- news/found/oma-and-koo-uic

Will Speros, “OMA and KOO Selected to Design Chicago Center for the Arts,” Contract Design, May 21, 2019. https://www.contractdesign.com/news/projects/oma-and-koo-selected-to-design-chicago-center-for-the-arts/

“OMA winner of the competition for the UIC Center for the Arts,” Metalocus, May 22, 2019. https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/oma-winner-competition-uic-center-arts

Andrew Mans, “See the amazing translucent photovoltaic roof planned for OMA and KOO's arts centre for the University of Illinois [at Chicago],” CLADNews, May 31, 2019. https://www.cladglobal.com/CLADnews/architecture_design/OMA-and-KOO-to-design-US$95m-arts-centre-for-the- University-of-Illinois/342025?source=coprofiles

Mary Scott Nabers, “Government officials launch large initiatives related to cultural assets,” Born2Invest, June 14, 2019. https://born2invest.com/articles/government-officials-large-initiatives-cultural-assets/ ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p19 of 20

Symposium: Public Performances: The Arts and Politics of Architecture School of Architecture, March 23, 2019, 9:30am-5pm

In conjunction with the design competition, the School of Architecture hosted a one-day symposium entitled Public Performances: The Arts and Politics of Architecture, which examined “the ways in which architecture both delivers and deviates from contemporary expectations for its political, technical, and aesthetic performances. At a moment when the idea of higher education as a public good is in question, the symposium proposes that the imaginative potential of such a project relies on redefining “public” so that it might complement and conscript “private,” rather than meekly contradict it. Starting from this position, the symposium aims more generally to advance possibilities for architecture as a particular kind of world-making that circulates through words, matter, and images. Each of the symposium’s three panels will address a particular sense of the performative in order to engage distinct lines of research and production. In these three acts, the event seeks to locate an architectural project for performance after identity, measurability, and theatricality.”

Written and organized by School of Architecture Director Robert Somol and Interim Dean of CADA Walter Benn Michaels, the multi-disciplinary symposium included participation by the principals of the three design firms in the competition, as well as other significant figures in architecture, art, theatre, and English. I identified a previously unknown College symposium fund, and secured a small grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts, to pay for the symposium. I moderated one of the panels, and made a short presentation on the Netsch Campus as part of the introduction to the day. The full house included attendance by UIC’s Provost Susan Poser, UIC’s Campus Architect David Taeyaerts, students and faculty from across the university, and members of the public.

Act I: Script (Architecture after Identity) addresses the ways in which architecture constitutes its publics as a form of enactment or speech act: its program is always something declared rather than a mere transcript of predetermined necessities. Panelists: Christine Mary Dunford, UIC; Sanford Kwinter, Pratt Institute; Shohei Shigematsu, OMA; and Kenneth Warren, . Moderated by Robert Somol, UIC.

Act II: Screen (Architecture after Measurability) understands the construction of architecture as a mediator of urban, environmental, and material exchanges: its envelope channels energies that exceed the metrics of its highly regulated but under-imagined demands. Panelists: Sarah Dunn, UIC; Thom Mayne, Morphosis; Albert Pope, ; and Alejandro Zaera-Polo, . Moderated by Judith De Jong, UIC.

Act III: Stage (Architecture after Theatricality) recognizes architecture’s power to include the unpredictable ways it is framed and choreographed by others: it establishes a platform for appropriation that can be played in more ways than those directed by its clients or creators. Panelists: Todd Cronan, Emory University; Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, Johnston Marklee; Daniel Shea, photographer; and Andrew Zago, UIC. Moderated by Walter Benn Michaels, UIC.

Trailer: https://arch.uic.edu/events/public-performances-arts-and-politics-architecture Full recordings: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL24QhrJWJn3a6PoYr6VnupYX-X4RrAG6m

Co-conveners: Robert Somol, Walter Benn Michaels, and Judith De Jong Graphic designer: Amir Berbic With SoA: Adriann Anderson, Jasen Domanico, Gwen Fullenkamp, Jayne Kelley CADA: Julie Duignan, Krishna Chandu, Annabelle Clarke, Jessica Cybalski, Cecilia Flores, John Han, Sarah Ritch

ACSA Creative Achievement Award Submission: The Future of the Netsch Campus p20 of 20

Graphic Designer: Associate Dean and Professor of Graphic Design Amir Berbic