Editor’s note: CAC will present “Meet the New AIA Guide to Chicago” on Tuesday, September 20 at noon. Guests may participate in person or via Zoom. CLICK HERE for more information and to register.
By Ed McDevitt, Class of 2010
The new AIA Guide to Chicago, Fourth Edition, published on June 28, 2022, is now in stores. It is substantially thicker than the third edition in 2014. The inclusion of 32 pages of color photos on heavier paper accounts for some of this. So does the addition of 36 more pages of text. It has a new main editor, Laurie McGovern Petersen, who has succeeded the estimable Alice Sinkevitch after being co-editor on the third edition. Ms. Sinkevitch was also Executive Director of AIA Chicago, a position now held by Jen Masengarb, formerly of the Chicago Architecture Center, a teacher many of us remember from our docent training.
The Guide’s information is, as usual, invaluable. The book does not pretend to be comprehensive. As it says in its Guide to the Guide, “Even at its present length, the Guide is illustrative rather than encyclopedic, presenting a representative selection of buildings in addition to the essential landmarks.”
If you’ve owned previous editions of the Guide and haven’t paid attention to its organization, here’s important information. “The Guide is organized by neighborhood chapters, beginning with the central city and radiating outward. . . . Because of the large areas covered in each chapter, all but the Loop have their entries ordered to facilitate driving tours.”
I do understand the Guide’s self-restriction, confining its coverage to neighborhoods within the City of Chicago, except that it includes Oak Park, “whose concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright designs compelled its inclusion.”
But were I to hope for additional inclusion, I’d suggest River Forest, with its concentration not only of Wright structures, but also of designs by William Drummond and other quite prominent architects. I’d also campaign to include Evanston and its richness of architectural styles, the work of equally prominent architects.
But then, of course, we’d have a true arm-breaker of a book like, say, the AIA Guide to New York City, at 1055 pages, about twice the size of the Chicago volume. For those who evaluate books by weight, the Chicago book weighs in at 1.83 pounds, whereas the New York book is a true boat anchor at 3.36 pounds. Interestingly, the most recent New York Guide, the 5th edition, was published in 2010. Chicago has had two new editions since then. Color us fortunate.
Thanks Ed!