Join the Chicago Architectural Club, Chicago Architecture Center, and World Business Chicago for the public announcement of the 2026 Burnham Prize winners and the opening celebration for The Future of State exhibition.
2026 Burnham Prize: The Future of State
Image by Neil Reindel, Nireekasha Manjunath, Elizabeth Cisneros-Tlaxcala, and Caleb Kwok of Perkins&Will.
State Street has always been more than a street. It is one of Chicago’s great civic corridors: a place of commerce, culture, transit, architecture and public life. Today, it is also a place of possibility. For the 2026 Burnham Prize, the Chicago Architectural Club invited architects, designers, artists, planners and interdisciplinary teams to imagine what State Street could become next. The competition asked participants to look at the historic corridor with fresh eyes and propose new ways to make it more active, welcoming and alive.
At this event, the winning proposals will be announced for the first time, followed by remarks from project partners and members of the jury. Guests will have the opportunity to view the selected entries on display in the Chicago Architecture Center and join a larger conversation about the future of State Street and downtown Chicago.
Speakers:
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Keynote speaker
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Featured Panelists
Eleanor Esser Gorski, AIA, has served as the CEO & President of the Chicago Architecture Center since 2022. Eleanor brings a wealth of knowledge to the CAC, with over 25 years of experience in architecture, historic preservation, and urban planning.
Her distinguished career includes leadership roles within the City of Chicago, where she served as Acting Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development. She spearheaded complex district-level planning work such as the Industrial Corridor Modernization Initiative and the Fulton Market, Innovation District Plan, while also managing the City’s role in many notable projects, including the five-year renovation of Wrigley Field and early planning for the iconic Obama Presidential Center.
Reed Kroloff is dean of the College of Design Futures and director of the School of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology. In a career spanning more than 25 years, he has also been: editor-in-chief of Architecture, which under his direction became the nation's leading architectural magazine; dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture, which he led through Hurricane Katrina and the following recovery; and director of the famed Cranbrook Academy of Art and Art Museum.
A regular national commentator on architecture and design, Kroloff has authored writing that has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Esquire, and Metropolis. He has also appeared in a number of television programs for suchnetworks as PBS and the Sundance Channel. He is a partner of jones|kroloff, with clients who have included the High Line in New York City, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, the federal government of Mexico, and dozens more. He is a Rome Prize recipient, and his work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale. He has degrees from Yale University and the University of Texas at Austin.
Elizabeth Blasius is an architectural historian and writer and co-founder of Preservation Futures, a Chicago-based firm exploring the future of historic preservation through research, action, and design. She works on preservation projects at the radical forefront of the preservation movement. Elizabeth advocates to bring the recognition and resources of preservation into communities that have been historically overlooked.
As the Founding Principal and President of site, Ernest C. Wong has been instrumental in the evolution of the firm over 35 years as a multi-cultural cutting-edge design entity, fostering the landscape architecture profession in Chicago.
Ernie serves on the board of numerous public service organizations and professional juries including the Driehaus Award for Architectural Excellence in Community Design, City Parks Alliance, and as the Chair of the Chicago Landmarks Commission. In 2013, Ernie was elevated to the American Society of Landscape Architects Council of Fellows for his exceptional leadership, extensive community service, and outreach work.
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