Shows
A Lot You Got to HollerEP 15: The Night Chicago DiedA Lot You Got to Holler is dead! For our last episode, we look ahead to Chicago architecture and urbanism to come: The Obama Library! 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial! Neoliberalism! Ben lets us in on how Uber but for architecture will work in the utopian future. (It's actually not terrible, we promise!). Zach looks back on his own checkered past as a naive proponent of not so great Postmodernism. Finally, we toast to the real A Lot You Got to Holler journey: the friends we made along the way. (That's you.) WE OUT. Special thanks to recording engineer...
2017-06-2732 minA Lot You Got to HollerEP 13: When Does the Present Become the Past? Talking Preservation with Lisa DiChiera of Landmarks Illinois It's a pretty wild time to be a historic preservationist, what with burgeoning preservation movements centered on building styles that few folks are sure they really like. (We're talking PoMo here.) As such, Lisa DiChiera takes us on a tour of all the Chicago buildings on Landmarks Illinois' 2017 list of most endangered places in the state before they're gone. Furthermore! Why we need to preserve buildings that aren't really even very old, the political fortunes of historic preservation in the Age of Trump, the sustainability ethos of preservation, and preservation's relationship to urban "authenticity" for the back-to-the-city gentrifiers. Special thanks t...
2017-05-161h 10A Lot You Got to HollerDesigning Urban Policy with Katherine DarnstadtKatherine Darnstadt's architecture firm Latent Design creates objects and urban systems, but it's biggest victories have come from pulling the upstream policy levers that set the context for what architecture can achieve. In her chat with Ben and Zach, Katherine comes out in favor of "extreme vetting" for architects, and how to structure your firm for equity and diversity. And hark! A new segment! A Lot You Got to Holler introduces "Qs for As," a series of rapid-fire questions that gets Katherine riffing on her favorite cities of the world and her least favorite architectural jargon. Special thanks to re...
2017-03-1555 minA Lot You Got to HollerEP 12: Who was Chicago's Edgar Miller?Edgar Miller is perhaps the most overlooked artist in the Chicago canon. Art was everywhere and everything to Miller, who used the city as his canvas through painting, woodworking, stained glass, sculpture, printmaking, iron working, industrial design and whatever materials fell his way. His expressionist, bespoke approach to design, art and architecture enlivens some of Chicago's (quietly) iconic spaces, from his Carl Street Studios to collaborations with Andrew Rebori on the Gold Coast's Frank Fisher Apartments. Miller's story embodies the movement of 20th century bohemia gliding across Chicago's landscape, from his early works in "Tower Town," adjacent to Bughouse Sq...
2017-02-231h 05
A Lot You Got to HollerEP 10: A Trumpening for Urban PolicyNow that a native New Yorker real estate agent is our president-elect, cities finally have the pro-urbanism voice in the White House they need! Right? NO EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE. How terrible? We ask Chicago urban policy ace Daniel Kay Hertz (@danielkayhertz) to explain how far the toilet we've flushed. Special thanks to recording engineer Tim Joyce.
2016-11-171h 09A Lot You Got to HollerEP 9: Praise to the Squirrels! And Other Election Season Dystopian Fairy TalesFor A Lot You Got to Holler's first election season special, co-hosts Zach Mortice and Newcity Design Editor Ben Schulman visit the totalitarian and poorly described world of Agenda 21, a book written by Glenn Beck, a conservative commentator known for his full heart, clear eyes, and tear-streaked cheeks; and Harriet Parke, a nurse of some literary renown. This dystopian artifact from 2012 describes a world in which an all-seeing authority uses clipboards and squirrel worship to manage every aspect of the population's life, forcing them to march on energy boards, recycle, ride around in pedicabs, and eat lots of soy. (It's b...
2016-10-0658 minA Lot You Got to HollerEP 7: Cities, Where Data LurksFor A Lot You Got to Holler’s first-ever live podcast, we shined a light on the most hidden and obscured element of urbanism that’s changing how we interact with cities in every way: data. Invisible streams of 1’s and 0’s pour out of our transit systems, buildings, and utility infrastructure, and into our smartphones, giving us a more dynamic look at what’s happening in our environment second-by-second. Hosts Zach Mortice and Newcity Design Editor Ben Schulman are joined by Chicago’s own data czar, John Tolva, former City of Chicago Chief Technology Officer and President of...
2016-09-0749 minA Lot You Got to HollerEP 8: Landscape Redemption with Ernie Wong of Site Design GroupThe A Lot You Got to Holler Cavalcade of Firsts continues, when co-hosts Zach Mortice and Ben Schulman sit down with Ernie Wong of Site Design Group--the show's first ever landscape architect guest! On the agenda: shared streets in Uptown, Chicago's many, many basket-case ruins and slag pits, and an oft-overlooked question: Is shutting down the Dan Ryan and setting prairie grasses in its median on fire a good idea, or the greatest idea? The answer will shock you! Special thanks to recording engineer Tim Joyce.
2016-08-3149 minA Lot You Got to HollerEP 6: Designing the Machinery of Urbanism with Carol Ross BarneyArchitecture is concert halls, museums, theaters, and all of our temples of high culture. But it's also train stations, sewer drains, and the seemingly anonymous infrastructure that makes the city work. Few architects understand how to elevate this everyday machinery of urbanism as well as Chicago's own Carol Ross Barney. She chats with Newcity design editor Ben Schulman and architectural journalist Zach Mortice about the Chicago Riverwalk, the 606, the CTA, and the future of Chicago. Special thanks to recording studio engineer Tim Joyce. Please rate and review us on iTunes!
2016-06-1448 min
A Lot You Got to HollerEP 5: Pullman's Past, Present, and FutureThe neighborhood of Pullman on Chicago's far South Side is a crucible of architectural, labor, industrial, and civil rights history. It's also a national monument, with big plans for renovation and redevelopment on the horizon. Commissioned by railroad magnate George Pullman in 1880 and designed by Solon Beman, Pullman was an idyllic workers utopia. . . for a few years, until a strike sparked what became the modern labor movement. Pullman and his architect looked to design and city planning to raise his bottom line and banish labor unrest from his company. It didn't work, but the result is one of Chicago's...
2016-05-171h 05A Lot You Got to HollerEP 4: Architecture is HilariousArchitecture requires massive amounts of money, time, and effort to come together. It's serious business. Most of the time. But here in Chicago there are a handful of designers that work humor into their architecture whenever they can, as a way to satirize the practice of architecture and the cultures that surround it, or as a way to invite new people into the conversation. For A Lot You Got to Holler's fourth episode, we're joined by Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer of Design with Company, as well as Ania Jaworska and artist/musician/designer Beverly Fresh. Free with each...
2016-04-0159 minA Lot You Got to HollerEP 3: Immodest Proposals for Chicago's LakefrontChicago's most valuable natural asset is its lakefront, forever free, public, and protected by law. This lakefront is so valuable, argues the architects at Port Urbanism, that we need more of it to pay off the city's massive debts. Or (if you ask the designers at UrbanLab) newly built islands in the lake must be drafted into relieving pressure from an overstressed storm drain system by filtering and cleaning the city's water. Featured at the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial, Port Urbanism and UrbanLab's lakefront proposals offer infrastructural fixes to some of Chicago's most dire emergencies. They also colonize a near-sacred u...
2016-02-1651 min
A Lot You Got to HollerEP 2: Cabrini-Green Dreams and NightmaresDepending on who's telling the tale, the Cabrini-Green housing projects on Chicago's Near North Side are either patient-zero for urban dysfunction and decay, or a humble high-rise utopia, Corbusier's Radiant City with soul. But at the end of the day it was home to 15,000 people. Cabrini-Green was mostly demolished by 2011, but its legacy both haunts, or enriches, the city, depending on who you ask. Co-hosts Zach Mortice and Newcity Design Editor Ben Schulman asked two Chicagoans: Chicago filmmaker Ronit Bezalel, whose film "70 Acres in Chicago" spent 20 years tracing the decline of of this community; and artist, designer, and educator...
2016-01-1449 min
A Lot You Got to HollerEP 1: Chicago Plays ItselfFrom the 80s to the 90s, movies set and filmed in Chicago showed a city cleaving itself in half. From John Hughes suburban-kid-in-the-city hijinks to the near apocalyptic urban horror of Candyman and Child's Play, these 20 years of film reflected the straining inequalities of the city that produced them. Newcity Design Editor Ben Schulman and Chicago architectural journalist Zach Mortice recount Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as sociopath cops and that time Kentucky hillbillies took on the Chicago Outfit. With special guest Bill Hogan (dude was in Home Alone).
2015-12-0238 min