Monday / November 21, 2022 / 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Reconnect 3.0 - AIA Illinois Conference
IIT, Crown Hall, 3360 South State Street, Chicago - also online
Join AIA Illinois for an in-person presentation and book signing with Lee Bey and Blair Kamin following the publication of their new book, Who Is the City For? Architecture, Equity, and the Public Realm in Chicago. Moderated by Reed Kroloff, dean of the IIT College of Architecture. The presentation will also be offered online.
At the book's heart is its expansive approach to a central concept in contemporary political and architectural discourse: equity. Kamin argues for a broad understanding of the term, one that prioritizes both the shared spaces of the public realm and the urgent need to rebuild Black and brown neighborhoods devastated by decades of discrimination and disinvestment. "At best," he writes in the book's introduction, "the public realm can serve as an equalizing force, a democratizing force. It can spread life's pleasures and confer dignity, irrespective of a person's race, income, creed, or gender. In doing so, the public realm can promote the social contract -- the notion that we are more than our individual selves, that our common humanity is made manifest in common ground." Yet the reality in Chicago, as Who Is the City For? powerfully demonstrates, often falls painfully short of that ideal.
The book will be available for purchase from the IIT bookstore. Social at 5:00 pm followed by presentation at 5:30 pm.
