GINIA BELLAFANTE: Jeanne’s Aqua Tower in Chicago — I’m sure many of you are familiar with her work — has the distinction of being the tallest building in the world built by a woman. Now she’s building an even taller building in Chicago.

But what I think is most meaningful and impressive about her work is the way that she’s really incorporated social justice work into all of her many projects. In the ’60s and ’70s in the United States, we had this real sense that design could solve so many social problems, right? There was Oscar Newman and Defensible Space and we thought low-rise buildings, low-rise public housing might really work to bring crime rates down.

That had mixed results. There was a lot of resistance to the idea. People think, “Well, oh no, the flow of capital to poor people solves social problems.” And it kind of faded away. And we entered an era of starchitects and big egos and — and buildings that were purely aesthetic. Where the premium was on the aesthetic. And Jeanne’s really brought back social mission architecture I think in a way that has real substance to it. And that’s what’s so exciting. And she’s going to take us on a tour of her work. And we’re going to talk about some of her most wonderful projects.

JEANNE GANG: Thanks, Ginia. I thought I’d just start with saying that tall buildings were one of the building types that people thought didn’t have any social component. But we’ve really been looking at how to use the balconies, how to use the common areas to make it possible for people to at least have a visual connection to each other.

There is a new project we’re working on called City Hyde Park that just opened in the Hyde Park area of Chicago. And so tall buildings, I think, are important, too. One of the things I really care about passionately is the river and the waterways in the city. And we’ve been working on how to use, how to open that back up so that former industrial lands can become places for social connectivity.

BELLAFANTE: I think what’s really interesting about this work is that there’s so much waterfront development in cities around the country. And a lot of it is, “Well, we’re going to plop some luxury condominiums on the water.” And there is no connectivity. And then the water’s just there as a place maybe to have a glass of wine and have a view. But what was meaningful to you about making the actual water in waterfronts important to the way people live. 

GANG: There’s the lake, and the river’s really the backyard, you know, of the city, similar to waterways that go through New York. And the opportunity to bring recreational activities, ecological parks, walkways, public space to the water and giving people access for the first time was really transformational. Because, you know, this water is really dirty. And you don’t want to fall in the water. So there was kind of a resistance to letting kids get out on the water and use it.