GRAY Magazine No. 58: The Remastered Issue

DESIGN DISPATCH

INTEL

THE WINDY CITY’S DESIGN SCENE WILL BLOW YOUR MIND

By Heidi Mitchell

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early two decades after it was nicknamed the Windy City, Chicago blew away any preconceived notions of what an urban landscape could look like. The year was 1893, and the World’s Columbian Exposition had landed at the South Side’s Jackson Park, reshaping a metropolis devastated by the Great Fire just 22 years prior.

Dozens of whitewashed buildings sprang up south of the Loop business district in what would become a model of symbiosis among architecture, design, industry, transportation, and public space. Architect and exposition director Daniel H. Burnham recruited the nation’s top sculptors of the built environment—including McKim, Mead & White, Louis Sullivan, G.W.G. Ferris, Frederick Law Olmsted, and other luminaries—to redraw the railroad capital of America, and segmented off the 26 miles of land fronting Lake Michigan, transforming it into a landscaped park that was, and remains, accessible to all. From the ashes, a sparkling White City emerged.

The city’s aesthetic has changed dramatically since 1893. The Chicago School of architects perfected the steelframe skyscraper. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe pared down built structures to, as he termed it, “skin and bones.” Frank Gehry and Anish Kapoor drew swooping lines across Millennium Park.

Black designers were at last recognized for their contribution to the city’s look and feel with 2019’s African American Designers in Chicago exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center. These days,

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international fairs continue to draw diverse talent and their patrons—to the annual NeoCon design trade fair, to the Basel-like Expo Chicago art show, to the Chicago Architecture Biennial, and to countless summer festivals.

Creatives confident enough to flaunt their Midwest pride—Theaster Gates, Holly Hunt, Virgil Abloh, Jeanne Gang— keep one-upping themselves while motivating other creatives to bring their A games. “I think it’s admirable that creative people here don’t feel the need to flock to the traditionally ordained ‘design cities’ to validate their contributions to the design world,” says Tereasa Surratt, vice president and global group creative director at Ogilvy and owner/innkeeper of the beloved artists’ retreat Camp Wandawega.

“They own and celebrate their roots and are inspiring the designers of tomorrow to rethink where they can find and create inspiration. Global talent flocks to them here.” In a city with 77 neighborhoods and at least as many ethnic enclaves, those flocks come in every shape, shade, size, and discipline, and they change every year.

From a jewelry designer who grew up in Paris to a team of Mexican interior designers that encourages community dining to a maximalist decorator from Indiana, here are seven tastemakers shaping Chicago’s creative scene today. »