Paris in Chicago: French Influences on the Development of Chicago's Lakefront Lecture SOLD OUT!

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Do you know that Chicago has its own Hector Guimard subway entrance located in plain sight, right on Michigan Avenue at Van Buren? Or that Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett’s 1909 Plan of Chicago was inspired in part by the Renaissance magnificence of Versailles’s landscape and the Exposition universelle de 1889 in Paris? Buckingham Fountain, Congress Plaza, and Grant Park all owe a debt to the French design. In this program, Chicago historian Julia Bachrach, author of The City in a Garden: A History of Chicago’s Parks, will explore the many fascinating and surprising ways Chicago’s lakefront has more than a little French flair.

This lecture is the first of two programs focusing on the connection between Chicago and Parisian landscape design. The second is a walking tour in Grant Park on Wednesday, August 23. Please find more information here.

This program is now sold out.

About the Speaker:

Julia S. Bachrach is an award-winning author, historian, preservationist, and urban planner. She served as historian and planning supervisor to the Chicago Park District for more than two decades. Her books include The City in a Garden: A History of Chicago’s Parks and Inspired by Nature: The Garfield Park Conservatory and Chicago’s West Side. She contributed essays to AIA Guide to Chicago Architecture, Oxford Companion to the Garden, Midwestern Landscape Architecture, and Encyclopedia of Chicago.