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Chicago, Illinois

So kiss me on the cheek, make it a long goodbye

The real draw for me to travel all the way to Chicago and to this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial (also known as CAB 5) was a last chance to go inside Helmut Jahn’s spectacular Thompson Center (or the State of Illinois Building as I still call it), open one last time just for CAB 5. It was threatened with demolition but saved by Google, who are planning interior changes. It still feels like 1985 inside, and while I’m good with that apparently Google is more interested in making it look like 2025 instead.

The exterior is nice, but the Thompson Center’s interior is just spectacular. I’m glad I got to see it again, one last time, knowing that whatever happens next is no fault of its own. Goodbye 1985 Thompson Center, I hope whatever happens next is far better than what I think is going to happen.

Most of the CAB 5 action was at the Chicago Cultural Center. About halfway through the exhibit I was prepared to write off most of it, but just then things started to pick up and I think it was actually the strongest of the three (of five) biennials I’ve been to. Below are a few pictures presented without explanation from inside the Chicago Cultural Center, glimpses of what CAB 5 was like, just enough for you to form your own thoughts and opinions on it.

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago goes all out for Christmas with a great big tree and then lots of regular size ones, each dedicated to a different country and very much decorated like it belongs in their embassy. And every half hour it snowed inside, although the indoor snowing part sounds an awful lot more impressive than it was in reality.

Next door to the Museum of Science and Industry they’re building the Obama Presidential Library designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. It’s still a few years off before opening, but I know I’ll use that opening as another reason to come back to Chicago.

The dusk view downtown from Chicago 360, the John Hancock Tower (or I guess now 875 North Michigan’s) observation deck. After it rained all day yesterday, the weather improved today but still it was still not all that great, and by dusk the clouds were already covering the top of the Sears Tower (or I guess now the Willis Tower).

My flight out of O’Hare was scheduled late, so I had a full day to kill in Chicago before finally giving up, boarding the CTA Blue Line and going back to the airport. The best place to kill time (for me at least) was at the skating ribbon at Maggie Daley Park, a constant stream of fun people watching as they circle around the climbing walls on a continuous track.

That’s a wrap for the 2023 Weekend Trips Slideshow. See you next year.

There are over a hundred slideshows to see, that’s a lot of slideshows