What is the proper analytical lens for an architecture critic? Should he or she focus on buildings as aesthetic objects or view them in a broader framework that accounts for the pragmatic realities of politics and business? And is it enough to simply look at buildings? Or is all of design, from a 6-by-12 inch license plate to President Trump’s proposed 1,000-mile border wall, fair game? This keynote lecture, part of a symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Master of Environmental Design program at the Yale School of Architecture, will explore these tensions through case studies that recount impactful critiques of the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago and an award-winning series of articles about the problems and promise of Chicago’s great public space, its lakefront.
Blair Kamin
Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune. A graduate of Amherst College and the Yale School of Architecture, he holds honorary degrees from Monmouth University and North Central College, where he serves as an adjunct professor of art. Kamin has lectured widely and has discussed architecture on numerous programs, from ABC’s “Nightline” to NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He is the winner of more than 40 awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, the George Polk Award for Criticism and the American Institute of Architects’ Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement. He has twice been a Pulitzer Prize juror. Kamin lives in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette with his wife, the author and former Chicago Tribune writer Barbara Mahany. They have two sons, Will, a first-year student at Yale Law School, and Teddy, a junior at New Trier High School.