Reverse Effect: Renewing Chicago's Waterways

by Jeanne Gang

Crisis becomes catalyst in this new book by visionary architect Jeanne Gang, which weaves together diverse content and voices to explore how the complex challenges facing Chicago's current waterway system can generate the revolutionary rebirth of its riverfront. The result of a yearlong collaboration between Studio Gang, NRDC, and students from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Reverse Effect was prompted by NRDC's 2010 report calling for a barrier in the Chicago River's South Branch to separate the Great Lakes and Mississippi Watersheds and thereby prevent invasive carp from entering Lake Michigan. Investigating how dividing the river could also connect and recharge surrounding neighborhoods led Studio Gang to discover exciting new possibilities for the city they call home. Reverse Effect is meant to become a tool that can empower a new generation of Chicagoans-from architects and designers to policymakers, advocates, and everyday citizens-to reimagine and reshape the river's future together, as well as a road map for the nation's broader river renaissance.

116 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Jeanne Gang leads Studio Gang Architects, a Chicago-based architecture and design firm. Gang's projects include Aqua, an 82-story mixed-use high-rise.

Studio Gang also generated SOS Children's Villages Lavezzorio Community Center, a 16,800-square-foot foster care community center on Chicago's South Side. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.

Gang earned a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 1986 and a Master of Architecture with Distinction from Harvard University in 1993. In 1989, she was an International Rotary Fellow, and she studied at the ETH Swiss Federal University of Technical Studies in Zurich, Switzerland. Prior to founding her own firm, she worked with OMA/Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam.

Studio Gang's work has been exhibited at the International Venice Biennale, the National Building Museum, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and Gang has been featured in publications such as Metropolis and Architecture Magazine. She has received high honors for her work, including an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006.

Gang has taught architecture as an adjunct associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology since 1998. She was visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2004, held the Louis I. Kahn professor chair at the Yale School of Architecture in 2005, and was the Graduate Design Studio Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in the spring of 2007.

Reviews

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda surprised about how this book makes it look like the idea of reversing the Chicago River was Jeanne Gang and NRDC's idea. Also, most of the images and ideas about what a separated river could look like are Gang's student's work, not her own. I know I'm overly critical because these are actually topics that I cover in my job, but it just sort of emphasizes why there are differences between what architects and what urban planners do. I will say that the visions for the futures are certainly pretty and innovative, and there is lip-service paid to actually talking to people in the surrounding communities, but there's not much helpful beyond that. Nice pretty picture book for the casual enthusiast (which, I'm sure was the intent...so, it achieved that), but not a serious book for people doing water policy or community development specific to these topics.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorgeous, hopeful book. Plans to separate the Chicago River from Lake Michigan and reverse the Chicago River back to its natural flow.