In a feature this week, Introspective, the official magazine of the popular online auction platform 1stDibs, examines the more than 200 objects, photographs, and documents on view in the new exhibition Modern by Design: Chicago Streamlines America.

The article looks at Modern by Design through the lens of Chicago’s historical role as a hub for both product design and graphics, and as a proponent of the late Art Deco style known as Streamline Moderne.

Writer Ted Loos connects the threads between similarly ambitious American art initiatives, such as Los Angeles’s Pacific Standard Time and the message that he perceives Art Design Chicago to be disseminating—as he puts it, “The Windy City is owed some attention and is finally getting it.”

Loos also speaks with Elizabeth Glassman, Terra Foundation President and CEO, and Olivia Mahoney, Senior Curator at the Chicago History Museum and organizer of Modern by Design, for insight into how the initiative has helped Chicago develop into the “cultural nexus” we see today, with Modern by Design serving as a chief example.

“The late Art Deco style — a hallmark of 20th-century design in the Midwest — hits the big time, once again, thanks to a just-opened museum show that's blowing away the Windy City…Nowhere is the importance of Chicago’s role as cultural nexus better exemplified than in Streamline Moderne.” – Introspective Magazine

Read the full article. Modern by Design: Chicago Streamlines America is on view through December 1, 2019 at the Chicago History Museum, as part of Art Design Chicago.