In a practice spanning forty years, Stuart Cohen and Julie Hacker have evolved strategies for making building additions that represent a theoretical and philosophical position about altering older structures. They believe that recycling existing buildings, retrofitting them to meet new energy standards, preserving their embodied energy as well as their cultural and historical significance, is the most sustainable way to practice architecture. 

Their new book, First Additions: Strategies for Adding On, presents theoretical essays about making additions, followed by a portfolio of their architectural work doing residential additions. Their lecture will present strategies for adding onto older buildings illustrated by both historic examples and by examples of their work.

Both Cohen and Hacker are Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, and both have served on Evanston’s Preservation Commission. Hacker has served on the Chicago AIA Board of Directors and both the National and Local CRAN (Custom Residential Architecture Network) steering committees. Cohen is the author of four books on the history of Chicago’s residential architecture and in 2022 received the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects’ Lifetime Achievement Award. They both received the Society of Architectural Historians’ Award for Excellence for their architectural practice. 

Chicago History Museum’s Director of Exhibitions, Paul Durica, will begin the program with an introduction discussing the Museum’s extensive architecture collection. After their presentation, Cohen and Hacker will sign copies of their book, which is illustrated with full page, full color photographs of their additions to historic houses located along Chicago’s North Shore. 

$15; $10 members. 

Questions? Contact Nell McKeown, development events manager, at mckeown@chicagohistory.org or (312) 799-2112.