Modern Chicago

Questions: email rsvp@rooseveltlibrary.com

Professors Ambrose and Sabatino will present a rich overview of the modern house and interior in Chicago with examples ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright to Mies van der Rohe. Additionally, they will present several lesser-known houses, including the 1939 house they restored for themselves in the famous Olmsted-designed Village of Riverside.

Michelangelo Sabatino PhD

Michelangelo Sabatino PhD (Hon. FRAIC) trained as an architect and historian in Canada, Italy, and the US. He is a publicly engaged architectural historian, curator, and preservationist whose research and writing focuses primarily on both lesser-known and canonical episodes of modern architecture and design. He is currently the Director of the School of Architecture + Planning of The University of Texas at San Antonio and Roland K. Blumberg Endowed Professor in Architecture. Before arriving to San Antonio, he was Professor of Architectural History and Preservation at IIT’s College of Architecture in Chicago where he directed the PhD program and was the inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow.

Sabatino’s first book, Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (2011), won multiple awards, including the Chicago-based Society of Architectural Historians’ Alice Davis Hitchcock Award. More recent books include Canada: Modern Architectures in History (2016), Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony (2019), Making Houston Modern: The Life and Architecture of Howard Barnstone (2020), Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller (2021), and most recently The Global Turn: Six Journeys of Modern Architecture and the City, 1945-1989 (2025).

During his time in Chicago, Sabatino co-authored Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929–1975 which won the “Modernism in America Award” from Docomomo US. He recently completed two books related to IIT and Mies: The Edith Farnsworth House: Architecture, Preservation, Culture (2024) and Mies in His Own Words: Complete Writings, Speeches, Interviews (2024). He is completing a new book Building, Breaking, and Rebuilding. The Illinois Institute of Technology Campus and Chicago’s South Side. This multidisciplinary scholarly and public history initiative is the basis of a short film, website, and permanent exhibition.

Serge Ambrose

Serge Ambrose is Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture of UT San Antonio. After spending his adolescent years in Jakarta and Singapore, he earned a Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Miami, and a Master of Architecture at Virginia Tech University. Mr. Ambrose worked for architect Allan Shulman in Miami, and then for Page and Dillon Kyle Architect in Houston. He is a founding member of the board of the Chicago chapter of Docomomo US, and he served as chair for four years. He is also a committee member of the Texas chapter of Association for Preservation Technology. In 2022, Mr. Ambrose and Dr. Sabatino won the annual Preservation Award of the Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside for their restoration of the Benda House and Garden.