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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 6h

Immortalized on a wall in Brooklyn with this welcoming message Artist: SacSix (seen in 2024)

Color photo of street art on a brick wall that has been painted black. Centered is a stylized drawing of the familiar NYC coffee cup with the blue background and the Greek meander. Inside of a white panel decorated with three yellow mugs are the words "Welcome Back. Now Get Out" scrawled in the dripping font favored by serial killers.

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

This is the last month to catch Carole A Feuerman's public art installation, "Monuments of Stillness," before it leaves Chicago. Here are 4 of the 10 sculptures scattered along the Mag Mile.

Color photo of Monumental Quan, an extremely realistic sculpture of a white woman in a pink swimsuit and gold swim cap perched atop a reflective fuchsia sphere. She balances on her hands and knees, her back slightly arched and legs bent upwards behind her. She faces the sphere, her eyes closed and expression tranquil in this busy downtown setting.

Color photo of Bibi on the Ball, a life size bronze sculpture of a woman in a black two piece swimsuit sitting atop of a reflective sphere, her legs crossed at the knee and face tilted up towards the sun.

Color photo of Justice, a life size bronze sculpture of a woman in a bikini and swim cap sitting in a meditative position atop a large sphere that reflects passersby and the streetscape.

Color photo of The Golden Mean, a life size bronze sculpture of a male figure wearing a shiny gold swim cap. He balances on his hands, his body perfectly arching into the air in an elegant handstand.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It me! Read along as I trace the history of this church from the original congregation's fight with George Pullman to build it, through Roseland's racial transition when Black folks like my parents started to move in, all the way to the congregation lovingly stewarding this building today.

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Elizabeth Blasius @blaservations.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

My monthly column in MAS Context returns on the ILZRO House, a 1973 experimental steel home in the woods of Rhode Island that holds within its design a watershed moment in universal design. Thanks, as always for reading!

mascontext.com

Preserving the Origins of Universal Design at the ILZRO House

In 1972 industrial designer and educator Marc Harrison, with the help of his students from the Rhode Island School of Design, created and built the ILZRO…

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Lake forever, A COLUMBIA PRODUCTION for now

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Details (former On Leong Merchants Association Building edition) Architects: Michaelsen & Rognstad, 1928

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I am once again asking for one of our intrepid Chicago designers to get "SHUT THE FUCK UP, RAHM" merch on the market ASAP

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Chicago Tudor Revival AF @tudoraf.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

YEEEEEESSSS, Shadowal blocks on the stairwell of 4124 N. California, ca. 1959

Color photo of a metal internal stairwell in an open corridor apartment building, taken at night. The wall along the stairwell is a bold pattern of large connected hexagons.

Color detail from wall in first pic. Gray-brown rectangular blocks with a trapezoid relief, laid to make stacks of hexagons.

Black and white ad for Shadowal by Utah Concrete Pipe Co.
Copy reads:
Shadowal THE CONCRETE MASONRY WITH 1,000 FACES. Recesses in the face of each Shadowal unit can be arranged in an almost limitless number of dramatic sculptured patterns. The true versatility of Shadowal concrete masonry is limited on by the imagination and ingenuity of the designer. Pics show blocks making hexagon, trapezoid, and diamond patterns.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I’d like to buy this & dedicate it to the worship of Pittsburgh Corning sculptured glass modules

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Sarah Fackrell @design-law.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

D342 - issued in 1851 for a design for a stove. #DesignPatents

design patent drawings showing a "dolphin" shaped stove decoration

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

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Chicago Tudor Revival AF @tudoraf.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We needed this gloom

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Jacob Pomrenke @buckweaver.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Today SABR launched an incredible new book and companion website on Baseball at Manzanar: How We Played the Game, 1942-1945. It’s the story of 120,000 Japanese Americans who were removed from their homes after Pearl Harbor and forced to live at remote incarceration camps: sabr.org/baseball-at-...

Cover image for SABR’s “Baseball at Manzanar: How We Played the Game, 1942-1945,” edited by Russ Speiller and James Forr.

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McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge @mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Hyde Park's own. Maybe time for an honorary street sign.

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Starshaped Press @starshapedpress.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Trinial goes hard… two sizes with mortised alt characters to mix and match. The dream of the 1890s is alive in the shop today (well, every day). #letterpress

Straight shot of metal typefaces in wooden tray.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

another year the macauthur foundation doesn't see my work to bring attention to breeze block as being worthy of a genius grant

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This year I returned to this Black, modernist enclave in Chatham to write about the late Jolyn Robichaux. After the death of her husband, she took over Baldwin Ice Cream, transforming that venerable, small operation into a major corporation, all the while keeping her community centered.

southsideweekly.com

Best Historical Home for Community Empowerment: Robichaux Home

Best of Chatham

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

may you live long enough to see the bus of your youth ascend to the illinois railway museum heaven, where all good transit goes

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Robert Loerzel @robertloerzel.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

People seem to be having lots of discourses that I don’t feel like catching up on.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I wrote about the long history of Roseland's Greater Tabernacle Cathedral, an architecturally stunning building that has witnessed profound neighborhood change in the nearly 140 years that it has commanded the intersection of 113th & King Drive.

southsideweekly.com

Best Beacon of Community Strength: Greater Tabernacle Cathedral

Best of Roseland

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Chicago Tudor Revival AF @tudoraf.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just a little twirly treat for the weekend, 5751 N. Campbell (Adolph Proskauer, 1926-27)

Color photo of a fancy 1920s two-flat in mottled light, with recessed entrance section on left. Facade is tan brick with stone or similar trim on parapet, minimally around windows and in a big way around front entrance, which features skinny columns with diagonal fluting, two rows of smooth leaves (not acanthus) below volutes on each capital, then boxes with shield design, a skimpy cornice, and obelisk finials. Festooned shield in brick between shield boxes, S-curls above front door, painted red with two little windows featuring diamond panes. (Phew!) Same curls above three ground-floor windows on main bay. Matching windows above have plain lunettes. Parapet is swan's neck pediment, h/t @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social for terminology. Window above entrance has diamond panes and lunette, with red clay tiles on roof section.

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ridgehistorical.bsky.social @ridgehistorical.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

👀 Did we hear "art-filled neighborhood stroll?" We think we did! Join us this Saturday as part of the 13th annual Beverly Art Walk! We're showcasing over 100 of Mati Maldre's stunning architectural photos. Thirsty? You're in luck. We'll have beer samples from local brewpub Horse Thief Hollow!

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Max Chavez @maxchavez.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Chicago! Art Deco World is now available for pick up today at the Chicago Architecture Center bookstore!

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Darren McLean @darrenmcleanuk.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The turn of the century text styles can be great. This very cool, on a slightly unhappy building

At gable log name of the South Gippsland Creamery and Butter Factory Company 1891

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Elizabeth Blasius @blaservations.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I'm looking forward to moderating a panel at Shaping Contemporary Realities: Architecture and Beyond this coming Friday, September 25th at Experimental Station! This symposium is FREE and full of awesome panelists and moderators. Register below: villa-albertine.org/va/events/sy...

villa-albertine.org

Shaping Contemporary Realities: Architecture and Beyond Symposium - Villa Albertine

Join us September 24–26 for a three-day public symposium in Chicago, organized by MAS Context and Villa Albertine Chicago, with leading support from Saint-Gobain, a global leader in light and sustaina...

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"A displaced section of Teletubbyland." GOOD LORD. I just hope the burn unit was prepped before this went to print.

In crop from article linked in OP, Lee Bey, resplendent in his derision, writes "I couldn't disagree more. The Welcome Hall is too tall and much too wide. It promises to sit there like a carbuncle in the park. And its arched grass roof makes the structure resemble a displaced section of Teletubbyland."

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Many thanks to everyone who came out on a terrible, horrible, no good, very rainy day to walk through Morgan Park with me. Y'all were a kickass crowd, & though we resembled a bunch of drowned rats at the end, y'all made it such a good time. Thanks for coming out!

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SideStreets @sidestreets.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Anyway here’s some of my favorite buildings.

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candy colored clown @chi-bromptonite.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

~the dazzling homes of Morgan Park~

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Chicago Tudor Revival AF @tudoraf.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Highlights from @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social's rainy, rollicking, erudite tour of Morgan Park

Color photo of the Gothic Revival entrance to an apartment building. In pale green terra cotta, a Tudor or similar arch, with stylized flowers on the soffit. Shields and vegetation in the arch's spandrels. A mini-tower on each side of surround, with tall pointed finials. In between finials a pattern of flowers-in-diamonds, each raising from the tip of a wave (not Vitruvian). In the middle, among cusped quatrefoil patterns, the street number: 11053-55. Rest of building is in peach terra cotta, with a little pink brick visible.

Color photo of a section of a three-story, with raised basement, Tudor Revival courtyard apartment building in tan brick. It's awesome. Castle tower on top left and half-timbered (stone on pale brick) bay on top right, with crenelated parapet in between. Rough light stone accents, most prevalently in vein on corner of slightly forward section middle-left. Northern catalpa kicking ass in rain on right.

Color photo of a Mission but also a bit Art Nouveau entrance to a white stucco apartment building. Door surround, in same stucco, has buttress-like piers on each with an adorbs statue niche. Slim top curved. Door, newer, has a window with a teardrop shape. It's summer, so there's vegetation in foreground and a maple tree blocking a little of the view from the top.

Color photo of a red stucco mansion, with many parts. One bay features pretty woodwork in window surrounds, painted gold and red, most prominently a triple arched window under a cornice. It is raining heavily, with a bunch of umbrellas in the foreground.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Grossing me out with chicken-related candy is apparently the gift that keeps on giving. This time @madopal.bsky.social showed up with chicken drumettes in candy form. Can't tell you how much I appreciate the Chicago Nerd Collective!