Blair Kamin
Encyclopedia
Blair Kamin is the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

, a post he has held since 1992. Kamin has held other jobs at the Tribune and previously worked for The Des Moines Register. He also serves as a contributing editor of Architectural Record
Architectural Record
Architectural Record is an American monthly magazine dedicated to architecture and interior design, published by McGraw-Hill Construction in New York City. It is over 110 years old...

. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1999, for a body of work highlighted by a series of articles about the problems and promise of Chicago's greatest public space, its lakefront. He has received numerous other honors, authored books and lectured widely.

Background

Born in Red Bank, New Jersey
Red Bank, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 11,844 people, 5,201 households, and 2,501 families residing in the borough. The population density was 6,639.1 people per square mile . There were 5,450 housing units at an average density of 3,055.0 per square mile...

, Kamin is a graduate of Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

, from which he received a Bachelor of Arts with honors in 1979, and the Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 School of Architecture, from which he received a Master of Environmental Design in 1984. He holds honorary degrees from Monmouth University
Monmouth University
Monmouth University is a private university located in West Long Branch, New Jersey, United States.Founded in 1933 as Monmouth Junior College, it became Monmouth College in 1956, and later Monmouth University in 1995 after receiving its charter....

 and North Central College
North Central College
North Central College is a leading liberal arts college providing students at different stages of life and from different ethnic, economic and religious backgrounds with comprehensive educational programs.-Academics:...

, the latter of which where he also serves as an adjunct professor of art.

Prior to being the architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, he served as its culture and suburban reporter from 1987–1992. He also served as reporter and architecture writer for The Des Moines Register from 1984–1987. He had once worked as an office clerk for a San Francisco interior design and architecture firm. He has lectured in forums such as American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...

' National Convention, the annual meeting of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy is an organization devoted to the historic preservation of buildings and their furnishings and decoration designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as to the study of Wright's career The organization has grown since its founding in the late 1980s to...

, the Ravinia Festival and Steppenwolf Theatre. He has discussed architecture on programs ranging from ABC's "Nightline
Nightline
Nightline, or ABC News Nightline is a late-night news program broadcast by ABC in the United States, and has a franchised formula to other networks and stations elsewhere in the world. It airs weeknights, usually for 31 minutes. Created by Roone Arledge, the program featured Ted Koppel as its main...

" , History Channel, National Public Radio to WTTW
WTTW
WTTW channel 11 is one of three Public Broadcasting Service member public television stations serving the Chicago, Illinois market; the others are WYCC and WYIN. WTTW began broadcasting on September 6, 1955 and it is owned and operated by Window to the World Communications, Inc., a not-for-profit...

-Ch. 11's "Chicago Tonight
Chicago Tonight
Chicago Tonight is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on WTTW in Chicago. Chicago Tonight reports primarily on local news and presents features showcasing local artists and events. The show started in 1984 and for 15 years popular Chicago broadcast journalist John Callaway...

." In 2001, the University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...

 published "Why Architecture Matters: Lessons from Chicago," a collection of his Chicago Tribune columns. In 2010, the University of Chicago Press published "Terror and Wonder: Architecture In a Tumultuous Age," a collection of Kamin's columns from the Tribune and other publications. Kamin also wrote the commentaries for "Tribune Tower: American Landmark," a guide to the newspaper's neo-Gothic Tribune Tower
Tribune Tower
The Tribune Tower is a neo-Gothic building located at 435 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Tribune and Tribune Company. WGN Radio also broadcasts from the building, with ground-level studios overlooking nearby Pioneer Court and Michigan Avenue. CNN's...

 skyscraper published in 2000.

Kamin cites as his influences Paul Gapp, Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger is the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City...

, Lois Wagner Green, Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable
Ada Louise Huxtable is an architecture critic and writer on architecture. In 1970 she was awarded the first ever Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for "distinguished criticism during 1969."...

, Vincent Scully
Vincent Scully
Vincent Joseph Scully, Jr. is Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject...

, Allan Temko
Allan Temko
Allan Bernard Temko was a Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic and writer based in San Francisco.Born in New York City and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey, Temko served as a U.S...

, and Joel Upton. In 1999 he was a visiting fellow
Visiting fellow
A visiting fellow is an academic, often a senior academic, who is undertaking research at a different institution than his or her main institution for a limited period of time, often but not necessarily at a foreign institution. A visiting fellow can be paid or unpaid; sometimes the salary is paid...

 at the Franke Institute for the Humanities at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. Kamin's wife is Tribune reporter Barbara Mahany and they have two sons.

Awards

Published in 1998, Kamin’s six-part series, “Reinventing the Lakefront” shed light on numerous problems along the city's shoreline, such as the disparity between lakefront parks bordered by largely white and affluent areas on Chicago's North Side and those lined by black and poor neighborhoods on the city's South Side. Following the publication of the deeply-reported essays, Mayor Richard M. Daley
Richard M. Daley
Richard Michael Daley is a United States politician, member of the national and local Democratic Party, and former Mayor of Chicago, Illinois. He was elected mayor in 1989 and reelected in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. He was the longest serving Chicago mayor, surpassing the tenure of his...

 and the Chicago Park District
Chicago Park District
The Chicago Park District is the oldest and largest park district in the U.S.A, with a $385 million annual budget. It has the distinction of spending the most per capita on its parks, even more than Boston in terms of park expenses per capita...

 authorized comprehensive plans for four of Chicago’s seven lakefront parks, an area of nearly 2,000 acres and more than 10 miles of shoreline. In addition, the city altered its plan for a former U.S. Steel
U.S. Steel
The United States Steel Corporation , more commonly known as U.S. Steel, is an integrated steel producer with major production operations in the United States, Canada, and Central Europe. The company is the world's tenth largest steel producer ranked by sales...

 site on the far south lakefront, bringing the total area affected by the series to almost 2,500 acres and 12 miles of shoreline.

Kamin's 1999 Pulitzer entry in criticism consisted of four parts of the six-part lakefront series, plus six other works of criticism on subjects ranging from the renovation of the North Michigan Avenue Marriott Hotel to an addition to Chicago's Adler Planetarium
Adler Planetarium
The Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum in Chicago, Illinois was the first planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere and is the oldest in existence today. Adler was founded and built in 1930 by the philanthropist Max Adler, with the assistance of the first director of the planetarium, Philip Fox...

. After the first round of the two-round Pulitzer judging, his entry was moved from the criticism category to the beat reporting category. The Chicago Reader described the situation as one in which "every jury that read his stories wanted someone else to judge them". One of the criticism jurors described the dilemma "He seems to do some investigative reporting and some advocacy editorializing, and some members of the panel didn't quite know what to make of it. So we did the cowardly thing and sent it to another panel." But the Pulitzer Prize Board, which has the ultimate authority, reversed the decision and moved Kamin's entry back to criticism. Kamin's Pulitzer Prize citation praised "his lucid coverage of city architecture, including an influential series supporting the development of Chicago's lakefront area.”

Kamin is the recipient of more than 30 awards. Among his other honors are the George Polk Award for Criticism (1996), the American Institute of Architects' Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement (1999) and the AIA's Presidential Citation, conferred in 2004. Kamin was part of the collaborative team that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence for the Architectural Record. He has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize juror.

Selected works

  • Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age (University of Chicago Press, 2010) ISBN 978-0-226-42311-1

External links

  • Bio at Pulitzer.org
  • Chicago Tribune article archives
  • Appearances on Chicago Tonight
    Chicago Tonight
    Chicago Tonight is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on WTTW in Chicago. Chicago Tonight reports primarily on local news and presents features showcasing local artists and events. The show started in 1984 and for 15 years popular Chicago broadcast journalist John Callaway...

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