Chicago's Esteemed Architecture Critic, Blair Kamin, Moves On

Blair Kamin at the end of last week announced the conclusion of a tenure as the architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune that spanned multiple decades and earned numerous accolades along the way.

Kamin made the announcement via Twitter.

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

In the thread that follows, Kamin explains that he "treated buildings not simply as architectural objects or technological marvels, but also as vessels of human possibility," and thanks the Chicago Tribune for never asking him to "pull punches." The thread ends with a call to quickly find a new architecture critic for the city of Chicago.

Kamin was awarded the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Works cited for the award include a series of articles titled "Reinventing the Lakefront." Kamin was a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard in addition to receiving numerous awards during his long career.

In the past decade, Kamin achieved a unusual amount of mainstream media attention during an episode that pitted the critic against a notorious Internet troll [links to a satirical April Fool's article] that would eventually go on to become president of the United States.