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 Marina City. By Corydalus' Photostream/flickr Chicago, IL–Fans of Chicago architecture, time is running out on the Bertrand Goldberg exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago. It ends on January 15. The architect of Marina City (those iconic tubular towers built from 1959-1967), Goldberg designed hospitals, housing projects, schools, houses, and even chairs and tables during his lifetime. While there are several of his designs in Chicago–the Raymond Hilliard Center elderly housing, Prentice Women’s Hospital, and River City–his work can be found from Washington to New York, and beyond, to Turkey and Yemen.
Chicago fans will love seeing the original drawings and promotional literature for Marina City, which touted parking for 900 cars, boat slips, an ice skating rink, bowling alley, and theatre. A 1965 video from Portland Cement shows the towers being built, scarely another tall building in site.
The exhibit includes more than 100 architectural drawings, photos and architectural models, as well as chairs, tables, and lamps designed by Goldberg.
Inside Marina City: A Project by Iker Gil and Andreas E.G. Larsson, features photos of residents and their apartments in Marina City. It’s a little like taking a Sunday house tour and seeing all the fun furniture, spaces, and ways people have adapted to the uniquely shaped units. Don’t miss the pink kitchen, with the original electric push-button range and metal cabinets.
Of course, you’re welcome to stay at the Art Institute and see Rembrandts, Picassos, Van Goghs, Renoirs, and perhaps Degas’ little dancer sculpture. But if you’re looking for Goldberg, tick tock!
 Photo courtesy UCLA Livingstone Library Los Angeles, CA–If you’ve ever wanted to see the actual handwriting of famed explorer Dr. David Livingstone, your wish is about to come true, thanks to the University of California-Los Angeles Digital Library Program. The library published the restored version of Livingstone’s 1871 diary, in which he writes of witnessing a massacre of 400 women by slave traders. Dr. David Livingstone had been presumed dead when he hadn’t been heard from for several years. Then New York Herald reporter Henry M. Stanley found him and learned of the massacre. The reports led to the end of Britain’s East Africa slave trade.
The diary was nearly illegible, as Livingstone had run out of paper and ink near the end of his journeys, resorting to writing on old newspapers and using homemade ink. A team of scholars and researchers used enhanced digital imaging to bring the handwriting to the fore, and you can now see this version, along with text transcriptions. The online diary is a free resource that was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the British Academy.
(Thanks to the College & Research Libraries News for tipping me off to this amazing site.)
 Chicago, IL–The seventh annual Polar Days at Northerly Island runs from noon to 4 p.m. today, and it looks like the cold weather arrived here just in time. Don’t worry if you can’t make it this afternoon, as there will be repeats of the Siberian huskie visits, ice sculpting, and more on January 21 and February 18, 2012. There may be snow later, adding snowshoeing to the list of activities.
Northerly Island, a 91-acre penninsula just south of the Adler Planetarium, links nature trails and play areas to a fieldhouse. A concert pavillion hosts music performances in the summer. The former Meigs Field Airport, now demolished, was located here. Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Bird Hospital treats injured birds, as this area is part of a major North American flyway. (If you want to see some cute owl photos, the FCWR Facebook page will charm you.)
Puppies, baby birds, ice sculptures: what more could you need on a bright winter’s day?
 Chicago, IL– On the far-west side of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory rises like a sparkling regal gem. Built in 1905, it houses 4.5 acres of plants under its glass roof and outside. Sadly, one of its dearest treasures, the famed Fern Room, shattered under a 2011 late June hailstorm. Yesterday, the Fern Room, designed by landscape architect Jens Jensen (1850-1951), reopened.
It is an oasis of calm in the city, with benches for meditating, babbling streams running under footbridges, and fountains softly gurgling. Jensen had the fountains adjusted several times before he deemed the sound just right. But the hailstorm halted all that.
Glass from the storm had to be picked out of the soil and from the roof. In the process of restoring the area, some walls that had been covered by vegetation were revealed for the first time in years.
The Show House and Desert House remain closed due to storm damage.
The conservatory is open 9-5 daily, Wednesdays until 8 pm. Admission is free.
 Twist, Germany–Geology and geography dominate life here. Twist, on the Dutch/Germany border between Dusseldorf and Hamburg, means “disputed border” in German. First settled in the late 1700s, it was a challenging marshy terrain only somewhat relieved when a North/South Canal was built in the late 1800s. The Twist bog was once the largest area for cultivating peat moss in Europe.
Today, the East Frisian countryside is a great place to hike, bike, birdwatch, and explore canals and boglands. You might even see a windmill or two.
The International Nature Park Bog straddles the borders of the two countries, offering a wintering stop for migratory birds and a chance to see a peat bog up close. (The next closest spot might just be Siberia, where most of the world’s peat harvesting occurs.) This is the site of what was once Europe’s largest continuous moor. Huge machines tunnel just outside the park, bringing up the peat into long mounded rows on the few patches of land are still permitted to be harvested. The nature park offers trails and views over the bog.
The Moor and Fen Museum in Elizabethfen offers a look into the history of the area. Inside, a relic of the 1950s remains: a huge machine that plowed 7 meters to turn up workable soil. Exhibits show the various hand tools that settlers used and hint at their hard life. Before the 1950s, people mostly hand-turned peat, and before World War II, hand-dug it, too. Men wore wooden shoes to prevent losing toes while shoveling, while woman toiled barefoot, hunched over to turn the peat bricks. 
  Highwood, IL–The rain and wind will not deter the hardy residents of Highwood from their appointed pumpkin duty. Once again, tiny Highwood will attempt to break the world record with 32,000 carved and lit pumpkins on display on Saturday, October 22, 2011 at 6:30.
Tomorrow night there’s a gourmet farmer market, live music and trick or treating throughout downtown. Pet will line up for a costume contest from 6-7 pm. Ceremonial lighting of the pumpkin wall (above, left) begins at 6:30.
A land regatta starts at noon on Saturday, with a 2 pm pumpkinfest parade. The lighting for the world record begins at 5:30 pm on Saturday, with a Thriller dance/flash mob during the lighting. Sounds pretty spooktacular.
 Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, Copyright 2003, The Saint John's Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Chicago, IL–When the shopping and the crowds on the Magnificent Mile drain your energy, head to LUMA for a recharge. LUMA, short for Loyola University Museum of Art, is a pocket museum directly across from the historic Water Tower at 820 N. Michigan Avenue.
A couple of exhibitions now are worth exploring, both running just through October 23. In Holiness and the Feminine Spirit: The Art of Janet McKenzie, the Vermont artist covers primarily African Americans and women in her paintings of religious themes.
My favorite exhibit, though, is Inscribing the Divine: the St. John’s Bible, a richly colored hand-illuminated and calligraphed Bible by Donald Jackson for the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota. The exhibit displays 13 folios from the Pentateuch and the Psalms, all touched with gold, bright colors and amazing calligraphy.
LUMA is free on Tuesdays and open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and from Wednesday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission on those days is $6.
 Highwood, IL– Even the view from a North Shore mansion isn’t this spectacular. Trails of the Openlands Lakeshore Preserve bridge over and through ravines and along undeveloped bluffs of Ft. Sheridan, often opening to expansive vistas overlooking Lake Michigan. Preserving and renewing this habitat for birds and native plants is the mission for the new preserve, which opened September 10.
Guides were on hand to lead visitors through the environmental aspects of the project and the artwork beside the trails. Visitors to the preserve can also check signs for QR codes to get podcasts on the artwork or other features of the preserve.
Walk the road down Barlett Ravine to hear woodpeckers and squirrels, and perhaps spy a hawk. At the road’s end, a north path leads to a dog-friendly beach and a south road to a more environmentally delicate one where pets aren’t allowed. Two staircases made of treated lumber with railings and decks of recycled plastic let you go from ravine or beach base up to the bluff, a welcome opportunity and safe way to access the different sections.
The land for the preserve was acquired from the U.S. Navy in 2006 through a grant from the Grand Victoria Foundation. A number of other donors have also contributed to remove invasive species, build stairs, and lay paths.
While the trail is not connected at one short stretch due to ongoing negotiations with the military, it’s an easy jog around that short point to a trail through a mound of wildflowers and grasses. This natural-looking spot is a former ravine that the army used as a landfill, now covered with flora. It’s a little odd to know you’re tramping on a big pile of trash, but the lake and wildflowers just may make you forget that fact. 
 Highland Park, IL–The Port Clinton Art Festival wound down its 28th year in Highland Park today. The 260 artists represented in the festival brought sculpture, painting, photography, glass, jewelry, and textiles, spread across two streets downtown. In addition, a live music stage and numerous local food purveyors added to the flavor of the event.
A number of artists offered affordable pieces for under $100, and there were live demonstrations and talks throughout the free weekend event.
The mild weather–not too hot, yet sunny and breezy–made it an especially fine weekend event to explore.
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