Marshall Brown and Geof Oppenheimer Address Architecture, Power, and the Urban Imaginary (original) (raw)

Art Wed Jun 26 2013

Architect Marshall Brown and artist Geof Oppenheimer will discuss architecture and urban imagery this Thursday at the Western Exhibitions gallery. Brown's exhibit Center of the World, Chicago shows that this urban designer thinks critically about Chicago's architectural history and the city's future, especially when it comes to downtown's Circle Interchange.

If you have ever been driving downtown and reached the Circle, you may feel that encountering with this concrete mystery can be both daunting and time consuming. You may not know that in 1909 one of Chicago's famous architects, Daniel Burnham, wanted to build a civic center where the Circle exists today.

Over 100 years after the disintegration of Burnham's civic plans, Brown is resurrecting new ideas about what to do, or rather what to build, at the Circle. Brown's 15 minute animated video presentation, The Center of the World: Histories of Chicago's Future, revolves around Chicago's urban planning possibilities, showing three construction scenarios for the Circle -- one political, another social, and yet another economical.

Oppenheimer brings his expertise surrounding issues of civic value, the role of political and social imagery, as well as the intersection between art and politics to the exhibition and to the discussion.

Join Brown and Oppenheimer for the discussion on Thursday, June 27 at 6pm at Western Exhibitions, located on the second floor at 845 W. Washington St.; for more information, call 312-480-8390.

Image: "Holy City" by Marshall Brown