chicago’s first international airport A contestant in Chicago's first official International Aviation Meet, August, 1911. With NASCAR racing in Grant Park earlier this summer and Chicago's annual Air + Water Show warming up over the lake, this seems an appropriate time to point out that Chicago…

This!!!

Was this mill in Shrewsbury, England, the "first skyscraper?" Well, no, but it made an essential contribution to high-rise construction and engineering, nonetheless. Happy to help set the record straight (-ish) in the ‪New York Times today. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/r...

Glad to see "The Modern Concrete Skyscraper" getting good reviews...up at the @skyscrapermuseum.bsky.social through the Fall. www.archpaper.com/2025/06/conc...

IT'S HERE: The McMansionization of the White House, or: Regional Car Dealership Rococo, a Treatise www.patreon.com/posts/mcmans...

The largest paying crowd in the history of Wrigley Field was the day Jackie Robinson made his debut. Wrigley is the only park left Jackie played a game in. Mike Ryoko was a kid at that ballpark that day and he wrote about it. Take a minute and read this today. press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago...

I'll be kicking off the University of Chicago's "Physics and Contemporary Architecture" online lecture series this Thursday, April 3, talking about wind bracing in the city's early (and more recent) skyscrapers. Quite a lineup--free to attend but registration required at: lnkd.in/g3enJkcG

“Concrete City” Part 3 (of 3) As part of our research for the Skyscraper Museum’s Modern Concrete Skyscraper exhibition, Carol Willis and I worked to understand how and why Chicago became the acknowledged center of high-strength and high-rise concrete design for much of the last half of the 20th…

“Concrete City” Part 2 (of 3) As part of our research for the Skyscraper Museum’s Modern Concrete Skyscraper exhibition, Carol Willis and I worked to understand how and why Chicago became the acknowledged center of high-strength and high-rise concrete design for much of the last half of the 20th…

“Concrete City” Part 1 (of 3) As part of our research for the Skyscraper Museum's Modern Concrete Skyscraper exhibition, Carol Willis and I worked to understand how and why Chicago became the acknowledged center of high-strength and high-rise concrete design for much of the last half of the 20th…

What Vance is doing here is ENORMOUS disinformation. International students at the undergrad level typically pay full tuition, which subsidizes tuition for American students on financial aid by keeping tuition costs lower. At the grad level, domestic students are harder to recruit!

“the modern concrete skyscraper” at the skyscraper museum University Towers, NYC. I.M. Pei. 1966-1967. JSTOR Happy to announce that after a couple of years of great conversations, deep dives into obscure 1920s issues of Cement Age, and ace model-making by a student team here, The Modern Concrete…

Contender for "least surprising article of all time:" www.wsj.com/finance/saud...

old chicago skyscraper of the week–federal center (A version of this appears in Chicago Skyscrapers, 1934-1986. Dusting this off as Kluczynski Building has--supposedly--been on the list of federal properties the current administration is looking to sell). (Update--Or not). Everett McKinley Dirksen…

N. Clifford Ricker and “The Elements of Construction” Any University of Illinois School of Architecture graduate will recognize the name Nathan Clifford Ricker. Our library and two school publications are named for him. We’ll waste no opportunity to point out that he was the first American to…

“american architecture” part 2 Construction of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in December, 1933. (Architect of the Capitol). Greenough's argument against "the adoption of admired forms and models for purposes not contemplated in their invention," particularly the use of classical architecture for…

“american architecture” (part 1) Every four or eight years, the age-old question "in what style should we build" seems to enter political discourse; modernism (or in the current iteration, a straw-man "brutalism") and classicism come to stand in for left vs. right in a way that seems to…

So, what were my students and I doing on top of the Pittsfield Building last Friday? architecturefarm.wordpress.com/2025/02/10/s...

In case any of the Construction Historian's friends on here have not yet joined the Construction History Society - you can read our past journals on @jstor.bsky.social vols 1-37 here: www.jstor.org/journal/cons... and you can join us here: www.constructionhistory.co.uk/membership/

Not great. These silos are historic for several reasons and could be elements of a genuinely great riverwalk. More here: architecturefarm.wordpress.com/2022/12/31/o...

Finishing up a really fun semester with some exceptional student work...

"Chicago Skyscrapers" is in good company here...very happy to see it on AIA Chicago's "Gift-Worthy Reads." Take care of all your holiday shopping at once! (on bookshop.org, of course...)

🧵The Construction Historian has lots of friends! In no particular order here are some of our pals in other countries: www.spehc.pt SOCIEDADE PORTUGUESA DE HISTÓRIA DA CONSTRUÇÃO Created in 2015, the youngest Society of Construction History, also with links to other Lusophone countries. 1/5

Tonight at 6 pm Eastern: Katie Filek will discuss Place Victoria, the Montreal tower designed by Luigi Moretti and Pier Luigi Nervi, on the Skyscraper Museum's webinar channel. Free event, registration required...