Richard Nickel (1928-1972) was a Polish- American architectural photographer and preservationist who spent much of his time here in Chicago. His work is now on exhibit at the Richard Driehaus Museum, 40 E. Erie St. Nickel first encountered the work of Louis Sullivan as a student, when photographing the architect's buildings for a project at the iiT institute of Design. in the 1960s and 1970s, ... Read More

Have you noticed that everything now looks the same? Your car, for instance. You probably drive an SUV (more than 50% of new car sales in the United States are SUVs), and every SUV pretty much looks like every other SUV. It is probably in some shade of white, gray or black, because the overwhelming majority of new cars are colorless. Yes, there are superficial differences, and yes we suffer ... Read More

Sep. 28—Although building the Ike Dike will take years, and the project hasn't yet been funded, it's closer to reality than ever. The bill approving the plan is nearing the finish line in Congress. If constructed, the massive, multibillion-dollar infrastructure to protect Houston and Galveston from future storms would drastically transform the landscape of the island. For longtime Houstonians, ... Read More

DOHA, QATAR — One of the most important museums in the Middle East, the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Doha, is due to reopen on October 5 following the “reimagination and reinstallation of its permanent collection galleries,” said museum officials in a statement. The museum has been closed since April 2021; the reconfiguration of the museum is part of a cultural bonanza in the small oil-rich ... Read More

Sep. 22—Satellites now have the power to detect the small but all-too-common releases of a potent climate-warming pollutant from offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental data company GHGSat announced Thursday that it had detected the smallest offshore methane emission ever seen from space. The plume was spotted at a platform off the Louisiana coast last month. "These ... Read More

Costa Mesa has a new neighbor— the Orange County Museum of Art, which debuts its new building to the public at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts on Oct. 8. The $94-million building, designed by Morphosis Architects as directed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne, has been in the works for more than a decade. It features a grand outdoor staircase, modeled after New York's ... Read More