Cities We Live In: Chicago

Classicism in Conversation returns for a new season with another installment of our popular mini-series Cities We Live In. Show host Kellen Krause and architects Anthony Catania and Rodrigo Bollat Montenegro visit Philip Bess, Professor of Architecture at the University of Notre Dame, at his home in the Lincoln Square neighborhood in Chicago. Professor Bess shares how his interests brought him to Chicago, and discusses the history that created the modern urban landscape we see today. 

Though he initially moved to the city to find a job as an architect, his experiences in the city brought him to the study of urbanism and its impact on the way people live in their environment. He later led Notre Dame's graduate urban design studio on the multi-year project After Burnham: The Notre Dame Plan of Chicago 2109, which he discusses in this episode. As Professor Bess puts it, urbanism is not just about walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods - rather, it encompasses the study of the entire region, including the relationship between the agricultural lands and what Aristotle called the polis. 

Cities We Live In is a study of what makes our favorite cities stand out, and in doing so conveying a need for a return to traditional design principles which make them so beloved. Not simply a history of urban form, Cities We Live In teaches us why good places matter.