Tag: Dankmar Adler

• July 3, 2017

  Finding Dankmar Adler in Chicago

  Dankmar Adler, that genius of acoustical engineering, was born on July 3, 1844—one hundred seventy-three years ago, today. The Chicago History Museum fêted him, but it’s well possible that if you’re not a Chicagoan, or not an architecture fan,1 you’ve never heard of him. He was an acoustic genius, the acoustics consultant for Carnegie Hall2; the […]
• September 25, 2016

  Progenitor of Towers: William Le Baron Jenney and the Skyscraper

  The skyline Jenney made possible: Chicago Skyline at Sunrise, by Daniel Schwen. 18 April 2009 Chicago is a city of (architectural) firsts, a city where architecture is a fount of civic pride, where it is, indeed, a spectator sport.1 We’ve got the first of the tall(est) skyscrapers designed by a woman, Jeanne Gang’s spectacular, undulating Aqua;2 we’ll […]
• July 27, 2015

  …they haven’t torn down all the old buildings yet

  Last week I visited Pittsburgh for the first time. It was exciting and terrifying, a combination of business (an interview) and pleasure (a visit to family whom I have not, alas, seen in over a decade). I flew rather than roadtripped for the first time, discovering it was rather like an Amtrak train in the sky, […]