The Brooklyn Rail

I was first brought into the material world of Bruce Goff with his heavy-handed 1947–48 renovation of the Myron Bachman House near Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood. The project is similar to Boystown’s Sidetrack video bar (or more local to the house, Atmosphere Bar) with its high-tech facade and interior detailing, than to any typical Chicago housing vernacular. Photographs for the Bachman House are projected onto the back wall of the exhibition, among many other of Goff’s built works.

At Graceland Cemetery on Chicago’s Northside, Goff’s gravestone (designed by his student, Grant Gustafson) is adorned with a glass cullet, originally from Goff’s Price House (also known as Shin’enKan). The Art Institute of Chicago displays a larger cullet, along with three more from Shin’enKan House behind museum plexiglass, reminding us of the imperfect perfections of Goff’s material wonders. These are only in the exhibition because of the destruction of the complete built work—these fragments are the lasting reminder of Goff’s inventions.

The Gay Eclectic, or what Charles Jencks later describes as postmodernism, largely stems from our queer forefathers who authentically recontextualized our daily lives into objecthood, fighting for their voice in an artistic world that defines queerness as contention. I do not declare Bruce Goff as what we consider postmodern, or even modern; simultaneously our collective idea of his work continues to produce newfangled ideas which rightfully prompt the Art Institute of Chicago to display a sliver of his masterful work in a category on its own. From scrappiness, ornament, fragmentation, collage, utopia comes architecture.

This is Material Worlds. This is Bruce Goff.

Bruce Goff, the flamboyant, high-pitched, soft-spoken man who Hollywood star Leslie Jordan would have been perfect to play in a biopic, is the brilliant architect who redefined living in his long-standing career. From Oklahoma to Chicago and beyond, Goff brings queerness into the limelight for his long awaited showcase, rightfully named Material Worlds, at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Regenstein Hall. Following the exhibition, the hall is planned to be replaced by the Grainger Center for Conservation and Science, designed by architectural firm Barozzi Veiga.

Of note, for this article we project the word queer to Goff. It is important to acknowledge queer as a pejorative during Goff’s era, that today he has largely pioneered in reclaiming as our own. Gay, homosexual, and other identifying language can be thought of as derived from similar cultural histories. As this is written in early 2026, we will continue to use today’s definition unless otherwise noted.

From a miniature Mirrored Ball Ornament (n.d.) (disco ball) as the first welcoming object to the exhibition, his well-worn bolo tie, spectacular button-ups, and bedazzled drawing tube are all on full display. With the inclusion of these well-worn, well-used objects, his personality shines. Nuanced nods to queer history are ever-present, including acknowledgments of the McCarthyism of Goff’s time. A portrait of Goff’s partner, Richard San Jule, in their shared Rogers Park apartment is displayed in a jewel box, near other personal household pieces. His miniature leather wallet opens up to a near dozen keys alluding to his transient adventures, of his multiplying close relationships with clients and his designs wherever they may be. The ever-present noise of Goff’s automatic piano centered in the gallery echoes throughout. This is studio, home, and gallery all at once, a deeply personal lifelong career and a highly calibrated and particular posture toward the world.

Designed by New Affiliates, the exhibition’s neon apricot burlesque jewelry boxes are an eclectic means within itself. This includes a pill-shaped display case with the distinct Gustav Klimt drawing, Male Nude With Foot On A Pedestal (1879). Moreso, New Affiliates uses color to its fullest extent. Historically, the color pink was used to forcibly label gay men in Nazi Germany. Intentional or not, today’s use of color now prides itself with unapologetic exuberance of queer freedom. With temporary white partitions painted neon apricot only at their ends, color radiates onto adjacent walls and display cases. The exhibition design is simple enough to allow Goff’s work—and by extension, Goff himself—to be the main, unapologetically glowing personality of the show.

The pill shape reminds me more of Steamworks Baths, Man’s Country, or Cell Block’s dark rooms than what we might learn to consider high art. Yet, all three Chicago queer spaces are distinctly similar to Goff’s built work; from building walls finished with found plywood, plexiglass, metal panels, shag carpet or pleather, the vernacular scrappiness is unmistakable. The imperfectly perfect place-making comfort cannot be dismissed. It is cultural.

Collages of fantastical worlds are distinct in drafting gone awry. An entire wall is dedicated to this style of imagery, with the collection speaking as one collage in itself. From dollar store star stickers to fur stuck onto canvas, the inherent queerness, the informality, the showiness, feels appropriate. No one piece is taking full attention in the exhibition, as many colorful representations are dueling typical architectural pencil drawings, no less magnificent. Each chapter of the exhibition layers information about Goff’s world, including hand renders by Robert K. Overstreet, Douglas Harris, Robert Alan Bowlby, Robert L. Faust, and more, to bring utopian planning to life.

The Mid-West radiates.

With those more unfamiliar with Goff, the Art Institute of Chicago links Frank Lloyd Wright, arguably the most famous architect in American history, into the programming. As long-time mentor, Wright’s work mirrors a semblance of style, with Goff presenting a bit more sensitivity to the vernacular. This may not be enough politically in today’s realm, though there tends to be a conscious integral decision of vernacular art blending into his monumental planning.

This is Material Worlds. This is Bruce Goff, again.