On Jan. 8, the Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Blair Kamin announced via Twitter that he was leaving the Chicago Tribune. Kamin has held the position since 1992, after joining the newspaper in 1987. ARCHITECT contributing editor Edward Keegan, AIA, spoke with him during his final week on the job.
1/7 After 33 years at Chicago Tribune, 28 as architecture critic, I’m taking a buyout + leaving the newspaper. It’s been an honor to cover + critique designs in the first city of American architecture + to continue the tradition begun by Paul Gapp, my Pulitzer-winning predecessor
— Blair Kamin (@BlairKamin) January 8, 2021
Keegan: The last 10 months of your tenure were during the COVID-19 pandemic. When was the last time you sat at your Tribune desk? Though construction was declared an “essential service,” did it change your work?
Kamin: My work changed a lot. I was based at home, not at my desk in the old Prudential Building, where the Tribune has been since it moved out of Tribune Tower in 2018. It’s much quieter at home than in a newsroom, which made it easier to think and write well. But the conflation of workplace and home is challenging, especially when your home office is right next to your bedroom. While trying to fall asleep, I would rewrite paragraphs in my head, and then I would start thinking: “Why wait until morning to put things down? I might forget.” So, I would get out of bed at midnight, trudge into my office, turn on the lights, put my fingers on the keyboard, and start typing.
How did your work evolve over 28 years? How did the role as the Tribune architecture critic change from that of your predecessor, Paul Gapp, Hon. AIA, to you in 1992, and to today?
I hope I got better at what I did, that the writing and the observations got sharper. That’s for you and others to judge. In response to the second question, the Tribune critic’s role expanded, both geographically and in terms of subject matter. Chicago architects were doing significant work overseas so the paper sent me to China, Dubai (United Arab Emirates), and Germany. At the same time, I sought to broaden Paul Gapp’s already-strong emphasis on urban design issues by writing about subjects like landscape architecture and the need for better low-income housing. In addition, the role became more public—more multiplatformed, if you will. Besides writing for the Tribune, I discussed architecture on TV and radio, on Facebook and Twitter, and in lectures and panels. If you want to make architecture a part of the public conversation, you have to go where the people are.
What were the most important issues you tackled?
In retrospect, it’s clear that I sought to focus the public’s attention on the three “P’s”: preservation, progressive architecture, and public realm.
Regarding preservation, it was essential to prevent a repeat of the tragic, utterly misguided demolitions of Pennsylvania Station (in New York) and the Chicago Stock Exchange Building in the 1960s and 1970s. Aged buildings make time visible, like layers of geologic strata. As Jane Jacobs wrote, they foster economic diversity, though gentrification makes that less true today. At best, these buildings provide high standards for future construction, raising expectations and a city’s collective architectural IQ.
Regarding progressive architecture, it was important to extend Chicago’s tradition of architectural innovation into a new century. Yet I didn’t see this as a matter of style; traditional architecture can be just as innovative as what we call modernist architecture. So, I praised the 1996 traditionalist transformation of Chicago’s State Street, which got rid of an ugly, little-used transit mall and reintegrated “that great street” into the daily flow of activity in the Loop. Yet in my final review, I praised Jeanne Gang, FAIA’s new St. Regis Chicago tower, not just for its elegant form, but because it explores new frontiers in glass technology that take us beyond simple, often energy-hogging transparency.
Finally, the public realm. My most important focus has been the spaces in between buildings: the parks, plazas, streets, sidewalks, and other easily-overlooked spaces that do so much to affect a city’s quality of life. The prime example is the 1998 series of articles that exposed the shortcomings of Chicago’s celebrated lakefront, particularly the gap in access and amenities between the mostly white, north lakefront and the mostly Black, south lakefront. That series led the city to commission plans for several of the lakefront parks and to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a range of features—expanded parkland, pedestrian bridges, a marina, beaches, and amenities—that helped close the gap between the city’s separate and unequal lakefronts. There’s clearly a social equity thread to this type of writing, but I don’t think those words ever appeared in the series. We simply said—and showed—that racist policies had created the gap.
Put the three “P’s” together and they add up to a larger project: A constant effort to reveal to the public the importance of good design—and the soul-crippling impact of its opposite. The idea was to broaden the constituency for architecture, landscape, architecture, and urban design. Judging by the outpouring of comments on Twitter and Facebook that readers have made since I announced I was leaving the Tribune, that project has succeeded.
Who were the most important players you covered?
The mayors of Chicago: Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel. They wielded enormous power over the cityscape. Daley backed small-bore beautification projects, like median planters in the middle of Michigan Avenue, and grand projets, like Millennium Park. Emanuel drove the construction of most of the downtown Riverwalk, new transit stations, and such exemplary architectural projects as the co-located structures that combine public libraries and public housing. The most important architects of the built environment aren’t necessarily architects.
You mentioned Millennium Park, Frank Gehry, FAIA, and Jeanne Gang in the Tweet thread announcing your departure. Could you share a longer—and understandably incomplete—list of favorite buildings, places, and architects that you covered?
Ah, the invariable “favorite buildings” question. Which is a lot like the “Who’s your favorite child?” question.
Here are some of my favorites: Louis Sullivan’s former Carson, Pirie, Scott, and Co. Store, in Chicago’s Loop, and his former Guaranty Building, in Buffalo. Both give you bone-beautiful articulation of the structure and drop-dead delicacy in the decoration. Also on the list: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple—what a worship space!—and Fallingwater, at once more intimate and more spectacular [in person] than in the photos.
Other favorites: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's former John Hancock Center—the X-braced giant that reminds me of a muscular, Prohibition-era gangster dressed in a tuxedo; and [Ludwig Mies van der Rohe]’s Farnsworth House, which, within the Miesian spectrum, is the polar opposite of the Hancock.
As for more contemporary work, I love Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, which has a tighter fit between form and function than his more celebrated Guggenheim Bilbao; Jeanne Gang’s Chicago River boathouses, which are less spectacular than her famous Aqua Tower but do a better job of integrating form, structure, and function; and John Ronan, FAIA’s, Poetry Foundation headquarters, which unfolds slowly and subtly, like a carefully composed poem. I still am a big fan of Helmut Jahn, FAIA’s, United Airlines Terminal at O’Hare, though it’s been seriously compromised by post-9/11 security measures.
What’s the most important thing that you know now about architecture that you didn’t know when you started?
I know a lot more about structural engineering, having written deep dive pieces about the structural designs of the Burj Khalifa, the Trump Tower in Chicago, and the St. Regis Chicago. I’m very proud of that work, considering that I got a C- in a college calculus course.
The media landscape has change enormously since you joined the Tribune in 1987. What were your biggest challenges during this time that came from within journalism itself and are not directly related to architecture?
The biggest change, of course, has been the digital revolution: the transition from ink on paper to publishing content on the web. There are real advantages to this shift, especially the opportunity to enrich the reader’s experience with graphic design and photography that might not fit within the confines of a newspaper page. On the other hand, the web has sped up everything tremendously, so there’s less time for careful reflection. In addition, the web gives everyone a megaphone, so everyone’s a critic. That underscores the need for critiques that are truly authoritative, not just someone popping off on Twitter.
While Donald Trump planned and built his Chicago tower entirely on your watch—and famously skirmished with you from time to time—it was Paul Gapp, your predecessor, whom he sued. How did you elude his legal maneuvers?
Trump never threatened to sue me, though some people wondered if I would sue him for defamation after he went on the Today show and called me a third-rate architectural critic and said he thought I’d been fired. Today ran an on-air correction.
How has Chicago’s role in the architecture world evolved during your tenure?
There’s more of Chicago out there in the world and more of the world here in Chicago. By that, I mean that Chicago architects have greatly expanded their overseas portfolios while architects from outside the city have gotten a bigger foothold here. That’s the economic story. As for design, I’d say there’s less collaboration today—no First or Second Chicago School, no Chicago Seven. There are a lot of individual architectural brands, but a lot less collective effort.
You famously had to argue for the Tribune to hire you as architecture critic in 1992, as they seemed to be leaning towards not replacing Paul Gapp. Why have newspapers continued to looked away from architecture?
Because some editors are clueless. They don’t recognize that architecture is a big story and that people really care about it.
You argued on Twitter that Chicago needs a full-time architecture critic. Given the exodus of talent that media in general, and the Tribune in particular, has had in recent years, do you have much hope that the Tribune will step up?
To me, the most important thing is that the coverage continues. That could happen in the Tribune. Or it could happen in other media outlets. I’ve already started talking to people who want to see architecture criticism in Chicago both survive and thrive. Stay tuned.
What do you predict is the most important architectural story that you may not have a chance to cover in the coming years?
Here are three possibilities: One, the post-pandemic revival (or not) of downtown Chicago. Two, the campaign to save a postmodern landmark, Helmut Jahn’s James R. Thompson Center, which I fully support. Three, the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, by Tod Williams, FAIA, and Billie Tsien, AIA.
You’ve already done five books, with two of them covering the first two decades of your career at the Tribune. Can we expect a third to close this chapter of your career?
Damn it, Keegan. You’ve planted the idea of a trilogy. Just don’t expect anything soon. I’m booked out.
According to Wikipedia, Paul Gapp wrote stamp collecting articles for the Tribune under a pseudonym. Did you ever do anything similar under the cloak of anonymity?
I never wrote under a pseudonym, but I did sneak into the Burj Khalifa. The tower was off-limits to journalists before its opening ceremony, yet I had to see the interior. My rule is that I won’t review a building until I have some idea of how it’s going to function. At the instruction of a leading structural engineer from SOM, I put on construction boots and a hard hat. Because I was disguised and had the engineer accompanying me, the security guys waved me through. It was right out of that scene in Star Wars when Obi-Wan Kenobi gets Luke Skywalker past Darth Vader’s storm troopers.
You said on Twitter “I have no idea” what you will do next, besides a break that will include long lakefront bike rides. Any additional thoughts since last Friday?
Yes, I also plan to take long lakefront walks in addition to long lakefront bike rides. Right now, after decades of stressful deadlines, doing nothing means everything.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. This article has been updated since first publication.
