Art Explorer

A Flutter app for browsing the Art Institute of Chicago's public collection — browse thousands of artworks and save favourites to a personal collection that syncs across devices.

Early work in progress — the roadmap below reflects current state. Built in public.

Screenshots

	Splash	Auth Screen	Email Sign In	Email Sign Up
iOS
Android

Tech Stack

Layer	Choice	Notes
Language	Dart / Flutter	iOS & Android
State management	BLoC	One bloc per domain — AuthBloc, ArtworkBloc, CollectionBloc
Data source	AIC Public API (REST)	CC0, no API key required
Auth	Firebase Auth · Google Sign-In	Email/password and Google Sign-In

Architecture

Strict BLoC + Repository — no business logic in the UI layer. Each bloc owns one domain and emits states the UI rebuilds from; repositories own all API and Firestore access.

UI (screens / widgets)
  ↓  events
BLoC          AuthBloc · ArtworkBloc · CollectionBloc
  ↓  calls
Repository    ArtRepository (AIC API) · AuthRepository (Firebase) · CollectionRepository (Firestore)
  ↓
Models        plain Dart data classes (Artwork)

Project layout (committed state — UI layer in progress):

lib/
├── main.dart
├── app.dart                       # MaterialApp
├── firebase_options.dart          # generated by flutterfire configure — not committed, see Firebase Setup
├── blocs/
│   ├── auth/                      # AuthBloc — events / states
│   ├── artwork/                   # ArtworkBloc — fetch, pagination
│   └── collection/                # CollectionBloc — load, save, remove, clear
├── models/
│   └── artwork.dart               # fromMap / toMap / imageUrl
├── repositories/
│   ├── art_repository.dart        # AIC API — browse
│   ├── auth_repository.dart       # Firebase Auth
│   └── collection_repository.dart # Firestore — load, save, remove
├── screens/
│   ├── auth_screen.dart           # wired to AuthBloc — sign-in, sign-up, and password reset
│   └── browse_screen.dart         # stub — title only
├── theme/
│   ├── app_colors.dart            # color tokens
│   ├── app_text_styles.dart       # Playfair Display / Barlow Condensed text styles
│   └── app_theme.dart             # ThemeData
├── utils/
│   └── app_strings.dart
└── widgets/
    └── linen_panel.dart           # signature frosted-linen panel — used on Auth, Browse, Detail

Roadmap

• Artwork model — JSON parsing and an imageUrl getter for the AIC IIIF endpoint
• ArtRepository — paginated browse against the AIC API
• ArtworkBloc — fetch and pagination (rolls back on a failed page load)
• Firebase Auth — AuthRepository + AuthBloc (email/password and Google Sign-In)
• CollectionRepository + CollectionBloc
• Auth screen UI — landing state (wordmark, Google Sign-In and email buttons)
• Auth screen wired to AuthBloc (SignInWithGoogle, SignInWithEmail, CreateLoginWithEmail, ResetPassword events)
• Browse screen — 🚧 In progress (metadata typography + pagination trigger pending)
• Collection screen
• Detail screen — save/unsave wired to Firestore - 🚧 In progress (styling + auth guard pending)
• Polish — empty states, error states
• Tests (bloc_test)

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Flutter 3.x / Dart 3.x
• VS Code with the Flutter extension
• Android SDK via Android Studio (emulator / device builds)
• Xcode (macOS only — required for iOS simulator and device builds)
• A Firebase project (config files are not committed — see below)

Firebase setup

1. Create a Firebase project at console.firebase.google.com
2. Enable Email/Password and Google Sign-In under Authentication
3. Enable Firestore
4. Run flutterfire configure to generate lib/firebase_options.dart
5. Download google-services.json from the Firebase console and place it in android/app/
6. Download GoogleService-Info.plist from the Firebase console and place it in ios/Runner/
7. For Google Sign-In on Android: add the SHA-1 fingerprint to your Android app in the Firebase console

Clone & run

git clone https://github.com/eomapps/artexplorer_flutter.git
cd artexplorer_flutter
flutter pub get
flutter run

License

Artwork data and images are provided by the Art Institute of Chicago under CC0 via their public API.