Retro Saturday: the CTA Red Line and Myron Goldsmith, Quiet Poet of American Architecture

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With most of the CTA's Red Line shut down to replace a 40-year-old track system, I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a brief look back at architect Myron Goldsmith, one of the lesser-known but most accomplished alumni of the firm of Mies van der Rohe. 

Back in the 1970's, Goldsmith designed the stations for the then-new extensions in the medians of the Kennedy and Dan Ryan expressways.  Especially after recent renovations, the simple excellence of Goldsmith's designs remain clear and elegant. 

A few years ago, the Plexiglas panels of Goldsmith's Red Line 47th Street station gained a colorful complement in Jo Hormuth's Canopy Lights installation.

Far beyond the CTA, Goldsmith's legacy stands undiminished through Chicago

and in the world . . .

Read:
Myron Goldsmith: Quiet Poet of American Architecture

Throwing Away the Headhouse: North & Clybourn Red Line Before and After Apple

We've written before about the reconstruction of the North & Clybourn stop on the CTA's Red Line, financed to a tune of nearly $4 million by Apple Computer to provide a more fitting backdrop to its shiny new store right next door.  It reminds me about the line in Lawrence of Arabia where Peter O'Toole is asked exactly what he found so attractive about the desert.  "It's clean," was his reply.

As described on the excellent Chicago-L.org website, the North & Clybourn station was designed in 1939 by Shaw, Naess and Murphy.  It is the only subway station in the system to have a headhouse. All the others have ticketing in below-ground mezzanines.

The redesign kept the building but largely threw away the design.  It's been Californiaized: dark textured brick getting flat, lighter replacements, windows, doors and lighting all redesigned.  The original building had character -it just needed to be cleaned up and restored.   The redesign is generic and banal.

Thanks to Landmarks Illinois, we've gotten some photo's of the original design in its later days, and we put them side to side with the new station, allowing you to make your own judgements.  Just remember to add a little imagination to see it in your mind as it was originally, not as the CTA had allowed it to decay.  And speculate what we might have had if Apple, instead of spending all that money replacing and throwing away the old brick, doors, and windows - repeat after me, the greenest building is the one that already exists - had used it instead to clean, repair and restore the original.  (All older photo's courtesy Landmarks Illinois.)

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According to Landmarks Illinois President James Peters . . .

There was no need to replace the brick or--even worse--the beautiful polished black granite panels that wrapped the base of the building and the eastern curved wall.

These materials were in fine shape, although dirty and in need of tuckpointing. This was purely a "make it look like any other 2010 commercial buff-colored brick box" cosmetic job.

Well before the work began, we tried desperately to redirect the project (and save money), but the die had been cast by the California designers for the project--and CTA was unwilling to cross them. Thus, a very unique Art Moderne (1943) station building gets banalized. And, in this era of "sustainability," a lot of great and beautiful building materials were tossed away, unnecessarily, in the process.

The CTA - and every other city agency - have recently announced that everything's now for sale to fill the gaping holes in all the budgets.  They will be aggressively pursuing naming rights for every city asset they can persuade some advertiser to put up the cash to brand.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing - I've already read someone suggest a UPS-sponsored Brown Line - but it's unlikely we'll find too many mores corporations as generous as Apple was at North & Clybourn.  For renovations to come, we need to balance the need for cash against preserving Chicago's unique character and keeping it from coming just another generic could-be-anywhere shopping mall.

Red Line Station Applized as Apple Mania Descends on North Avenue for opening of Lincoln Park store

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A drear, rainy day didn't stop Macaddicts from turning out in force for the Saturday opening of Apple's new store at North and Halsted.

According to the website infoAppleStore.com, nearly 300 people were standing in line by the time the store opened at 10:00 a.m., with mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel earlier working the line, shaking hands and asking, "What are you going to buy today?"

As the rains came, store employees handed out Apple branded umbrellas, which were collected as customers entered the store, in small controlled batches, to the thanks of employees, applause . . .

and even high fives . . .

In essence, the steel-clad store is a 6,500 square-foot rectangular tube for selling. open at both ends with all-glass facades, centered by the iconic Apple logo floating above in benediction.  According to Crain's Chicago Business, the property on which the store stands, formerly home to a gas station, was acquired for $10.5 million by an unnamed Mexican investor, with Apple paying a cool $750,00 for leasing rights, which extend through the next 30 years.

The total size is 18,000 square-feet, including the back-office basement and adjacent, marble paved plaza.  Included is a flush-surfaced shallow fountain that's the very model of Apple minimalism.

infoAppleStore.com has an informative and entertaining account of the preparation and opening here, including links to other accounts and some great photos far more professional than what you see in this post.  (They had better weather: that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) See our previous report on the Lincoln Park Apple store, including a more detailed account of the elements of the design here.

After the break: read about the Apple-funded North & Clybourn station rehab (with pictures) and John Sculley's take on his days at Apple.