Preservation Futures, in text and media
Google Buys Thompson Center, Will Preserve Much Loved, Loathed Loop Landmark
Bonnie McDonald, President and CEO of Landmarks Illinois; and Elizabeth Blasius, an architectural historian and co-founder of Preservation Futures join “Chicago Tonight” to talk about Google’s purchase of the Thompson Center and the building’s renovations
Google to buy, renovate Chicago’s Thompson Center
Google’s purchase of the James R. Thompson Center could add an estimated 5,000 jobs to the Loop, an area where office vacancies are more than 20%. But it also raises questions about the future of the building as a historic Chicago landmark. Reset checks in with Jonathan Solomon of Preservation Futures to discuss the implications of Google’s plans.
Op-ed: Thompson Center 2.0 is a preservation win for 2022
So, did we win? Yes — we won, whether the color remains or doesn’t, this is a win for climate change mitigation, a win for transit equity and a win for public space. Preservation as it functions in the real world must be a negotiation, not a battle over architectural details.
Preservation Advocates Continue Pursuit Of Landmark Status For Thompson Center
Reset gets an update on efforts to save the James R. Thompson Center from being demolished after a state panel recommended that the building be nominated for the National Register of Historic Places...
Preservationists protest Thompson Center sale
About two dozen people gathered outside the James R. Thompson Center on Wednesday to protest the state’s ongoing efforts to sell the glassy state office building, which preservation groups call an iconic and integral component to Chicago’s downtown.
The Thompson Center, a blend of patriotism and Postmodernism, should be a Chicago landmark
The Thompson Center was designed to be a resource for the public to engage in both commerce and citizenship, and it met those goals well. In 2015, architecture critic Lee Bey called it “one of the finest — and most used — indoor public spaces in the state”...
Bishop Louis Henry Ford, Namesake Of Freeway And Eulogist At Emmett Till's Funeral, Was Chicago's 1st Historic Preservationist
Chicago’s oldest house, the 1836 Henry B. Clarke House, was bought by Bishop Ford in 1941 and cared for by Ford and the St. Paul Church of God in Christ until it became a city-run house museum in 1982...
Research, Action and Design: Preservation Futures Seeks to Elevate the Social and Cultural History Embedded in Places and Spaces
Preservation Futures is set to explore the future of historic preservation through research, action and design—but the Chicago-based firm does things differently...
Why a Chicago Historic Preservation Plan Collapsed
Fears of gentrification doomed a long-planned effort to landmark Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. For historic preservation advocates, that failure may be an instructive lesson...
Chicago can better protect its historic architecture with a new survey of old buildings
While the Chicago Historic Resources Survey (CHRS) was well-intentioned, giving it the nostalgic treatment in a recent article — a veneration of the days when preservationists drove around in a Chevette, unknowingly determining the fate of thousands of historic buildings — takes away from what it represents: a policy failure...