Preservation Futures, in text and media
From Resources to Rubble: Evaluating Chicago’s Demolition Delay Ordinance in its Twentieth Year
As the 2003 Demolition Delay Ordinance turns twenty, Elizabeth Blasius writes in her monthly column about the successes and failures of this ordinance as well as the need to think about Chicago’s demolition problem holistically.
National Park Service Agrees: Till Story Should Be Preserved
Today, the National Park Service released the Mississippi Civil Rights Sites Special Resource Study, affirming that the story of Emmett Till’s murder in Mississippi is suitable for inclusion in the National Park System.
Church That Hosted Emmett Till’s Funeral Should Be A National Landmark
Through the Antiquities Act, the 125-year-old Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ could become a national monument and an addition to a proposed Bronzeville national heritage area.
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”...