New essential Chicagoan: Jeanne Gang
We’ve admired the Chicago architect since 2004, when we first saw the design for her bird-friendly Ford Calumet Environmental Center on the Far South Side, but the recent completion of Gang’s curvy residential skyscraper Aqua (430 E Waterside Dr) catapulted her to starchitect status. Her firm, Studio Gang, designed Columbia College’s Media Production Center, which opened in February, and has more amazing projects in store, including a renovation that reshapes Lincoln Park Zoo’s South Pond.
Gang’s new Chicago essential The Chicago Model City at the Chicago Architecture Foundation (224 S Michigan Ave, 312-922-3432, architecture.org). The exhibit, which opened in June 2009, replicates in miniature 1,000 buildings on 400 blocks of Chicago’s downtown—complete with simulated sunshine. “When I have visitors in town and we are walking around the city, I always stop in and give them an overview of Chicago and our best buildings,” she says.
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