Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

ABOUT THE GRAHAM FOUNDATION + BOOKSHOP

Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realizes this vision through making project-based grants to individuals and organizations and producing exhibitions, events, and publications.

As the oldest private funder in the field of architecture in the country, the Graham makes grants nationally and internationally to support books, exhibitions, installations, film/video/new media projects, as well as individual research projects. At the Madlener House—a 1901–02 Prairie style mansion located in the historic Gold Coast that has served as headquarters since 1963—the Graham Foundation produces exhibitions and public programs that engage contemporary work and issues in architecture. It also houses the Graham Foundation grantee library and bookshop—featuring a selection of publications from an international roster of publishers, as well as an extensive collection of local and international periodicals on architecture, urbanism, art, and related fields.

The Graham Foundation Bookshop offers a selection of publications produced by the Foundation’s grantees, titles related to our public programming, as well as new, historically significant, and rare publications on architecture, urbanism, art, and related fields. In addition to relevant monographs, exhibition catalogues, research, and theory-based titles, the Graham Foundation Bookshop carries an extensive collection of local and international journals and periodicals. Chicago-based designer Ania Jaworska was commissioned to design the shop, located in the former dining room of the Madlener House.