“It’s a good time to be an architecture fan in Chicago. Historian, photographer, and critic Lee Bey will have a monthly column in the Sun-Times Sunday edition beginning in April. Ever since Blair Kamin announced his resignation from the Chicago Tribune early last year, the third-largest city in the country has been without an architecture critic in a major local publication.
“The collapse of local news has been unkind to architecture critics. At their best, critics serve as voices that make design accessible and engaging. They help explain the political structures and planning policies that shape streets and neighborhoods. In the process, they have the power to shape public opinion and the future of cities. Without them, real-estate development and city planning become dangerously opaque and muddled by marketing jargon and flashy or misleading top-down narratives.
“Bey is a lifelong Chicagoan who brings to the role decades of insider knowledge about architecture from the perspective of community groups, architecture firms, and local government. He was the Sun-Times’ architecture and urban-design critic from 1996 to 2001, leaving his post to serve as deputy chief of staff for planning and design for the Richard M. Daley administration.” (Budds, Curbed New York, 3/28/22)
Read the full story at Curbed New York
Chicago Has a Newspaper Architecture Critic Again, Diana Budds, Curbed New York, 3/28/22
Lee Bey Is Back on the Architecture Beat in Chicago, Martin C. Pedersen, Common Edge, 4/4/22
‘Southern Exposure’ Expands Chicago’s Architectural Canon, Quinn Myers, WTTW Chicago, 10/17/19