The Art Institute of Chicago presents the first American retrospective of architect Bertrand Goldberg (1913–1997), comprising approximately 150 objects including drawings and models for such iconic structures as Marina City (1963), Prentice Women's Hospital (1974), and River City (1982), as well as important examples of his graphic, furniture, and interior designs. Drawn from the architect's professional archives—housed exclusively at the Art Institute of Chicago—and from the private collections of the Goldberg family, the exhibition offers an unprecedented opportunity to examine the breadth and depth of Goldberg's concerns as an architect, engineer, designer, urban planner, and developer. An accompanying catalogue, representing the first in-depth exploration of the architect's life and career, includes new scholarly essays as well as several previously unpublished designs, and aims to reassess Goldberg's position within the canon of mid-century modernist architecture.

Zoë Ryan, cocurator, catalogue editor/author, is chair and John H. Bryan Curator of Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to joining the Art Institute, she was senior curator at the Van Alen Institute in New York and a curatorial assistant in the Architecture and Design Department of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She holds a master's degree in art history from Hunter College and a bachelor's degree in art history from the University of Sussex. She often serves as a juror for design and architecture awards and has spoken at numerous international conferences and panels. Her writing on art and design has been published in the Architect's Newspaper, Blueprint, Contemporary, Monument, Icon, and Log, among others. She was cocurator and catalogue author for the Art Institute's 2010-11 exhibition Hyperlinks: Architecture and Design, and most recently for Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects.

Alison Fisher, cocurator, catalogue author, is Harold and Margot Schiff Assistant Curator of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she curated the exhibitions Looking After Louis Sullivan (2010) and The Challenge of American Style (2010–11). Prior to joining the Art Institute in fall 2009, she was a curatorial fellow at Northwestern University's Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, where she developed the original exhibition Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature. She is completing a doctorate in art history at Northwestern University.

Elizabeth Smith, cocurator, catalogue author, is executive director, curatorial affairs, at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Previously, she was chief curator and deputy director for programs at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has curated/coorganized several exhibitions on architecture including The Architecture of R. M. Schindler (2001); Garofalo Architects: Between the Museum and the City (2003); and Sustainable Architecture in Chicago: Works in Progress (2006–07). She is the author of Techno Architecture (Thames & Hudson, 2000) and Case Study Houses: The Complete CSH Program (Taschen, 2002).

Sarah Whiting, catalogue author, is dean of the Rice University School of Architecture in Houston, Texas. An architect, educator, critic, author, and editor specializing in urban and architectural theory, she has served on the faculty of the Princeton University School of Architecture, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, the University of Kentucky, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Florida. Before founding WW Architecture with her husband, Ron Witte, she worked with Rem Koolhaas at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where she was a designer on a number of architectural and urban projects.

Founded in 1879, the Art Institute of Chicago collects, preserves, and interprets works of art of the highest quality, representing the world's diverse artistic traditions, for the inspiration and education of the public and in accordance with the museum profession's highest ethical standards and practices. With an encyclopedic collection comprising 270,000 objects and spanning 50 centuries of human creative achievement, the Art Institute is recognized worldwide as a leading center for the preservation, exhibition, and study of visual art across all eras and cultures.