Paul Goldberger THE IMPERFECT CITY

December 7 | Off-site | 6:00 PM

Paul Goldberger, The Imperfect City

From the vernacular to the spectacular, Chicago is an architecture city, and its architectural, design, and planning communities are deeply engaged with the themes in Paul Goldberger’s latest book THE IMPERFECT CITY. We are delighted to host Paul’s Chicago launch at the modernist Chicago Architecture Center, designed by Mies van der Rohe, where he’ll be in conversation with award-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin. Tickets include a copy of the book, and an in-person book signing following the event!

Getting here: The Chicago Architecture Center is located at 111 East Wacker Dr. (One Illinois Center) in downtown Chicago.

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About the Book: Drawn from a lifetime of appreciation, dating back to his own tender-aged first arrivals in Manhattan, Paris, and beyond, this warm and brilliant book shows that the joy of urban experience comes not from seeking the perfection of order, but from embracing the energy, beauty, and unpredictability of cities at their best. The Imperfect City helps us to understand how cities, and people, truly evolve—by luck, accident, and design.

Paul Goldberger, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, began his career at The New York Times, where he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism for his writing on architecture. Later, and for fifteen years, he was architecture critic for The New Yorker. He is the author of many books, including Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry, Why Architecture Matters, and most recently, Ballpark: Baseball in the American City. He teaches at the New School and lectures widely around the country on architecture, design, historic preservation, and cities. He lives in New York City.

Former Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism and numerous other awards, including the Order of Lincoln, Illinois’ highest civilian honor. Born in Red Bank, N.J., he is a graduate of Amherst College and the Yale School of Architecture. During a Nieman journalism fellowship at Harvard during the 2012-13 academic year, Kamin became fascinated by the 25 gates that enclose Harvard Yard and co-taught a class about them during Harvard’s January term. The eight-day class led to a thirteen-year journey that has culminated in a new clothbound edition of the widely-praised guidebook “Gates of Harvard Yard.” Previously issued in paperback, the book reveals the beauty, history, lore and legacy of Harvard’s often-overlooked sentries. Kamin edited the book, which is published by Harvard University Press and includes a foreword by Pulitzer winner Ann Marie Lipinski, formerly editor of the Chicago Tribune and curator of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.