Film festival, new tours and a trip to the suburbs

MAY 14, 2020 • ISSUE 07

Explore the wonders of Chicago as a CAC member! You’ll see our fascinating city in a whole new way with great perks like FREE CAC Live virtual tours led by expert docents—and a host of amazing benefits including 75 FREE walking tours (when the CAC reopens) that are second to none. Memberships start at just $80.

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FEATURED PROGRAM

PASS THE POPCORN

This Memorial Day weekend, join the CAC and Chicago’s Music Box Theatre for Celluloid Skylines, our at-home architecture film festival, Friday, May 22 through Monday, May 25. Designed to explore how filmmakers use architecture to tell extraordinary stories, each day features a film to watch at home (while enjoying a themed cocktail recipe), a post-screening discussion with CAC staff and a guest expert—and more. Join us all four days for the price of three and save even more if you’re a current CAC or Music Box Theatre member.

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Registration closes at noon Central Time on Friday, May 22.

CAC LIVE: PROGRAMS

A Tale of Two Fairs
Wednesday, May 20 at 7pm

We’ve all heard about the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and its grand “White City,” but rarely about Chicago’s “other” world’s fair, held 40 years later. CAC docent Ellen Shubart compares the two—and explains why one is talked about so much more often today than the other.

If the Walls of Farnsworth House Could Talk
Saturday, May 23 at 1pm
Wednesday, June 10 at 7pm

A brief encounter at a dinner party led to one of the most intriguing design collaborations of the 20th century. Learn about the house Mies van der Rohe designed for accomplished physician and polymath Dr. Edith Farnsworth—a structure that revolutionized domestic architecture forever.

CAC LIVE: VIRTUAL TOURS

Brutalism and Postmodernism
Tuesday, May 19 at 5:30pm
Sunday, May 24 at 1pm

Modernism dominated American architecture in the years after World War II—until design ideas began to change again, starting in the late 1960s. Visit buildings that challenged the tenets of Modernism on this live, 45-minute tour with CAC docent Mike McMains.

CAC Live brings the world of architecture and design to you—wherever you are—through timely discussions with industry leaders, talks with acclaimed authors and experts, virtual tours focused on landmarks and historical styles, building and neighborhood stories with CAC docents, and more! Visit architecture.org/caclive to browse and register for upcoming events.

CALENDAR

A GREAT IDEA FOR #IMD2020

This year, the International Council of Museums celebrates International Museum Day online with a focus on equity. Tune into the CAC’s YouTube channel at noon Central Time on Monday, May 18 to view our program “Advancing Equity through Partnership: Cultural Nonprofits and Industry Stakeholders.” Panelists include design leaders Kimberly Dowdell, Juan Gabriel Moreno and Ernest C. Wong.

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CAC FOR THE FAMILY

WE BUILT THIS CITY

For this week’s episode of Architecture Essentials and its at-home activity, we’re inviting tomorrow’s landscape architects and urban planners to design the neighborhoods they want to live in. Let’s head over to the CAC’s ArcelorMittal Design Studio and get started.

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NEIGHBORHOOD STROLLERS

Just about any shape you’ve ever learned or could possibly imagine has been used by an architect on the outside or inside of a building. Looking closely at the structures in your neighborhood, what shapes do you see?

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WE’LL HUFF, AND WE’LL PUFF, AND WE’LL FLIP THE PAGES

Previously on “Storytime with the CAC,” CAC Education Facilitator Paul Neumann brought you the 1971 classic “Apt. 3” written and illustrated by Ezra Jack Keats. This Friday, May 15 at 12:30pm Central Time, tune into the CAC’s Facebook page to read Steven Guarnaccia’s quirky, design-centered retelling of “The Three Little Pigs” with us.

DIY IN DOWNERS GROVE

About 100 years ago you could order your dream home from a Sears catalogue for less than $1,000—and build it yourself using pre-cut parts shipped by rail. CAC docent-in-training Lisa Ciota brings us to Chicago’s western suburbs for a walkable route past five of Downers Grove’s more than 70 “Sears Homes.”

Variety, they say, is the spice of life. This week’s roundup of media endorsements gathers an eclectic mix from CAC docents and staff including a documentary, an essay, a podcast and a virtual tour.

ONE MORE THING

Last week, CAC Program Operations Specialist Ian Spula had seven questions for award-winning author, historian preservationist and planner Julia Bachrach. Spula’s latest interviewee is photographer and CAC Communications Specialist Anna Munzesheimer, who’s been exploring her new neighborhood through the lens of her Panasonic LUMIX GH4.

While we’ve temporarily paused renting our Center’s galleries for special events, you can join videoconferences and webinars “from” the CAC for free! Choose from four HD backgrounds for Zoom and other platforms that put you right where the stories of the city begin.

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The CAC is committed to providing a safe experience for its entire community of members, staff, visitors, volunteers and tour attendees. Visit our COVID-19 information page for the latest updates.

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