We Built This City in London was a huge success and we’ve done it all again this time in the windiest of cities, Chicago.

Kicking off the event is a screening of an IAF commissioned short by Dyehouse Films in collaboration  its available HERE.

This film traces the Irish involvement in building Chicago, from the famous I&M canal to the rise of the Irish culturally and politically. A generation of Irish architects came to study under Mies van der Rohe at IIT in the fifties and sixties and this has inspired Irish architects working internationally today. Lead by Clare Lyster (Architect and Associate Professor of Architecture UIC ) it also features Kevin Harrington (Architectural Historian), Ellen Skerrett (Chicago Historian and Author), Rich Lindberg (Novelist and Historian) and John Ronan (award-winning Architect).

We Built This City is a lively panel discussion that will chronicle the development of Chicago from historic to contemporary times, focusing on the contribution Irish people have made to the city’s built and cultural fabric.

Shiben Banerji (Assistant Professor of Art History, Theory and Criticism SAIC), John E. Sheridan (Senior Vice President, James McHugh Construction Co.), Ellen Grimes (Associate Professor of Architecture SAIC), Billy Lawless (Restaurateur and Immigration Activist) and Vincent L. Michael (PhD, Trustee, Global Heritage Fund) will discuss the theme from their distinctive perspectives with moderator Timothy Mennel (Senior Editor at University of Chicago Press).

We Built this City is presented by the Irish Architecture Foundation in collaboration with Irish Design 2015 and the Office of the Minister for Diaspora Affairs of Ireland.

WE BUILT THIS CITY continues in New York City, Spring 2016