Questions raised over selection process for massive expansion of O’Hare International Airport

A city-appointed evaluation committee heard presentations from the architects on Tuesday and Wednesday, yet the city is declining to make public the identities of the committee’s members. Worse, the committee will prepare a report, but that report won’t be made public.

The highly anticipated international design competition to expand Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has released their shortlist of five proposals from heavyweights Foster + Partners, Studio Gang, Calatrava, SOM, and Fentress. Amidst chatter on the merits of each, questions have been raised over the transparency of the selection process, which refuses to disclose both the identities of the evaluation committee as well as their report on the five presentations. This lack of transparency matters because, as Blair Kamin cautions in the Chicago Tribune, it "means that the public will be in the dark about what the experts think. It also means Mayor Rahm Emanuel will be free to make an arbitrary or ill-informed choice."

Mackenzie Goldberg via Archinect - News http://bit.ly/2FJSDJF