His work in Chicago has created spaces that protect and celebrate black lives and experience.
Artist and urban planner Theaster Gates was recently awarded the Urban Land Institute’s J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development, reports John Gose.
Gates founded Rebuild Foundation in Chicago and is behind numerous projects bringing together art, cultural development, and neighborhood revitalization to preserve African-American history and culture. The result has been over $45 million in investments on the city’s South Side through the transformation of more than 30 abandoned buildings into cultural and event venues and housing.
His projects include Black Cinema House, which hosts screenings of black films and offers video training to community members. The Stony Island Arts Bank is a renovated former bank branch that now provides space to artists, scholars, and curators. Gose describes another project housing a variety of important collections:
Gates also directed the renovation of a former candy store into Listening House, which provides space for community programs and serves as an archive for esteemed Chicago institutions of a bygone era, including Dr. Wax Records, which closed in 2010 after 30 years; Johnson Publishing Co., which sold its Jet and Ebony magazines to private equity firm Clear View Group in 2016; and the shuttered Prairie Avenue Bookstore, one of the last architecture book stores in the U.S.
In addition to supporting the local community, Gates wants these spaces to connect people through art. "The events attract people who normally wouldn't consider venturing into places like Chicago’s South Side, he explains, and illustrate how active environments can positively influence perceptions," notes Gose.
FULL STORY: To Theaster Gates, Art And Redevelopment Are One And The Same
Pennsylvania Mall Conversion Bill Passes House
If passed, the bill would promote the adaptive reuse of defunct commercial buildings.
Planning for Accessibility: Proximity is More Important than Mobility
Accessibility-based planning minimizes the distance that people must travel to reach desired services and activities. Measured this way, increased density can provide more total benefits than increased speeds.
World's Largest Wildlife Overpass In the Works in Los Angeles County
Caltrans will soon close half of the 101 Freeway in order to continue construction of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing near Agoura Hills in Los Angeles County.
Eviction Looms for Low-Income Tenants as Rent Debt Rises
Nonprofit housing operators across the country face almost $10 billion in rent debt.
Brightline West Breaks Ground
The high-speed rail line will link Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area.
Colorado Bans No-Fault Evictions
In most cases, landlords must provide a just cause for evicting tenants.
City of Costa Mesa
Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Tufts University, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy & Planning
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.