Jonathan Mekinda, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History and the School of Design University of Illinois at Chicago, delivered a talk titled “Rethinking the Middle: The Cesate Quarter and Modernism at Mid-Century” at 12:30 p.m. on Thur., Oct. 15, in room 216 at 3410 S. State Street on the campus of IIT.
Jonathan Mekinda is a historian of modern architecture and design and an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Art History and the School of Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his PhD in the History of Art from the University of Pennsylvania, where his dissertation research was supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Professor Mekinda has organized panels and presented papers at numerous conferences and institutions, including the Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), the International Committee for Design History and Design Studies, and the Society of Architectural Historians. He has written for journals such as the Journal of Architectural Education, the Journal of Design History, and Design Issues, and in the fall of 2013, Chicagoisms, which he co-edited with Alexander Eisenschmidt, was published by Park Books. His current book project, entitled Building the House of Man, looks at architecture and design in Italy between 1930 and 1960, with a particular focus on the Neorealist culture of the postwar period.