More peeks at Art Institute exhibit of Marina City homes

May 25, 2011 – Two more images by a Swedish photographer of Marina City residents and their residences have been released in advance of an exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago in September.

Andreas Larsson – who has photographed on assignment for Chicago Magazine, The New York Times, Dwell, Harper’s Bazaar, and Billboard – has been working on the project, Inside Marina City, since 2009, along with architect Iker Gil. An adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Gil is also director of an architecture and urban design firm, and a Marina City resident.

Their images will be on display at the Art Institute at the same time as an exhibition celebrating the work of Marina City architect Bertrand Goldberg. That exhibit will run September 10, 2011 through January 8, 2012.

(Above) Although Larsson and Gil have declined to identify people in their photographs, we quickly recognized Marina City Online’s real estate expert, Michael Michalak, and his wife, Junko Michalak Minami. They are seen here on the balcony of their west tower unit.

(Below) We also recognized original Marina City resident Yolanda Flader, photographed in the living room of her west tower unit. (Click on images to view larger versions.)

Gil was a panelist at the Architecture and Design Film Festival in Chicago in early May. He told architecture writer Stephen Killion the Marina City project was an attempt to showcase not so much the architecture of the complex but the real environments in which residents live. “It is a study of the stories told within architecture rather than an understanding of the building itself.”