Wasting No Time on the George Lucas Museum: Design Competition winners unveiled

First Place Winner Mircea Eni (all images courtesy VIATechnik)

 It's only a week ago that the news broke that Chicago has been chosen by film-maker George Lucas as the winning location for his $400 million Lucas Museum of of Narrative Art.  We'll be weighing in on the topic over the next few days, but we already have a press release announcing the winner of an unofficial George Lucas Museum Design Contest, sponsored by VIATechnik, a Chicago-based firm offering “estimating, LEED Coordination and BIM modeling services to Engineers, General Contractors, and Developers.”

First Place Winner Mircea Eni (click images for larger view)

First place went to recent IIT School of Architecture grad Mircea Eni, currently interning at Krueck+Sexton for the summer.  Eni's proposal circumvents the growing controversy over placing the museum on a lakefront site by lifting up the entire building above the landscape.  According to Jury member Mike Ellch of Related Midwest, as the site is on “a museum campus meant to be enjoyed by everybody” the winning design “has a park that is accessible to everyone, and this is very important to this design, that's why we liked it."  Architect Carol Ross Barney, another juror, referred to the winning design as “taking you to this almost dreamlike level as a great story is being told.  There is this idea of being lifted up, and the illusion it creates is quite nice.”

Filling out the jury was Daniel Peddicord of Pepper Construction and Brian McElhatten of Arup Chicago.  CEO Danielle Dy Buncio said that VIATechnik launched the competition about a month ago, after Lucas made known his interest in Chicago as a potential home to his project.  “We wanted to host an unofficial contest where aspiring designers and architects could showcase their talents and passion for the Star Wars Franchise and its maker George Lucas, while helping Chicago become a destination for what will assuredly be an iconic Museum.”

Second Place recognition went to Andrew Issac Ng and Laura Kiyokane, both recent grads of the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning . . .

. . . with a honorable mention to marketing manager Rodney Marmilic and architect Eddy Stambulic, the Australian duo collectively know as the Womp Rats . . .

Thom Mayne, Barry Byrne, Stefan Scholten, Broken Windows, Wheeler, Ross Barney, Kerwin, Tiffany, Pecha, Elks and much, much more - the September Calender is Here!

It's time to get off the beach and into Chicago's great spaces.  We've already got over 50 great items for you to check out on the just-published September 2013 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

The big lecture season starts at 6:00 p.m. this Wednesday (the 4th) with Thom Mayne at Hermann Hall at IIT.  Dan Wheeler joins Julia Fish in a Gallery Talk with at MCA Saturday, the 14th, and Stefan Scholten of Dutch design firm Scholten and Baijings is at the Art Institute Friday, the 27th, in conjunction with the opening of the new show 3 in 1: Contemporary Explorations in Architecture and Design.

3 in 1 is just one of several  new shows opening in September, including Frank Lloyd Wright Prints and Drawings at the ArchiTech Gallery,  Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, and Environments and Counter Environments, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, 1972, at the Graham.

The month begins today, Tuesday the 3rd, with the Broken Windows event at Polish Triangle, rescheduled from July.  It includes a placemaking workshop led by Katherine Darnstadt at 3:00, Paul Durica, Maribel Mares and Sarah Ross - and open mic - beginning at 6:00.  On Thursday, there's this year's A-CAN-emy Awards Gala at CANstruction, along the first floor lobbies of the Merchandise Mart, benefiting the Greater Chicago Food Depository, in which teams from local design firms create architectural constructions made entirely out of canned goods.
with a series of readings on our relationship with our built environment with

We don't usually cover tours - there's just too many - but one that stands out is the opportunity on Wednesday the 12th to board the Chicago Architecture Foundation's Chicago First Lady boat and take a tour of Design Along the Chicago River led by some of the people most responsible for the its current evolution:  CDOT's Michelle Woods, Gina Ford of Sasaki Associates, Carol Ross Barney, Tom Kerwin of bKL and Claire Cahan of Studio/Gang Architects.  It ties into CAF's current Take Me to the River exhibition, and to their Wednesday lunchtime lecture series which will feature Woods, Barney and Ford this Wednesday the 4th,  river photographer Richard Wasserman on the 11th,  Tracy Metz talking about her book Sweet and Salt: Water and the Dutch on the 18th, and Patrick McBriarty discussing Chicago River Bridges on the 25th.

Pecha Kucha Chicago Volume #27 is up Tuesday, the 10th at Martyr's,  Landmarks Illinois 2013 Skyline Social sets up shop in the spectacular Elks National Memorial on Saturday the 14th.

Hard on the heels on the recent publication of the splendid Alfonso Iannelli, Modern by Design, we now have the new monograph, The Architecture of Barry Byrne, with author Vince Michael discussing and signing copies of his book at Unity Temple, Tuesday, September 17th, and at the Chicago Cultural Center for Landmarks Illinois lunchtime Thursday, the 19th.

On the 19th and 20th, there's the Building Well: Traditional Design, Materials and Methods conference and expo at the Chicago History Museum.  On the 19th, Jason Busch talks about Decorative Arts at  the World's Fairs 1851-1939 at the Driehaus, where David A. Hanks lectures on Tiffany in Chicago Saturday evening, the 28th and Sunday morning, the 29th.

HouseHaus/IIT's Martin Klaeschen talks about The Passive House That Breathes at the Chicago Center for Green Technology Thursday the 19th, the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois have a Tuesday the 24th seminar on Occupant Caused Floor Vibrations.  On Wednesday, the 25th, Design Evanston offers a look at Walgreen's new Net Zero Energy Store, while on Thursday the 26th, Elizabeth Helsinger discusses the history of the Burne-Jones/Morris windows at Second Presbyterian Church.  Over at the Glessner House Museum on Sunday the 29th, John Waters talk about H.H. Richardson and his Chicago Legacy.  It's Richardson's birthday.  There will be cake.

And even all this is just scratching the surface.  There's much, much more.  Check out all the details on the September 2013 of Chicago Architectural Events.

Finishing the River Walk - Introduction and Block One: The Marina

construction of Wabash-State segment of Chicago River Walk

More details emerged Wednesday on the plans for Phase II of the Chicago River Walk.  At a public meeting at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Chicago Department of Transportation Project Manager Michelle Woods offered a presentation - which she promised would soon be on line - and she was joined by architect Carol Ross Barney and  Sasaki Associates Principal Gina Ford.

from left: Carol Ross Barney, Gina Ford of Sasaki Associates, Michelle Woods, CDOT

Ross Barney told me that the final six blocks of the River Walk were designed as a procession that goes from more structured, at the denser, eastern end, to more natural, at the less dense - at least for now - western end.

“A typical boardwalk,” said Woods, “has a consistent look from one end to the other.  On the main branch of the Chicago River, every moveable bridge is unique, every one is different and separate from each other.  So we took this as an opportunity to create a different experience as you went from bridge to bridge and we used different types of river themes to come up with those different options.”

click images for larger view

Right now, the finished river walk ends at State Street.  Planning and design for the next phases is 90% for the segment from State to LaSalle, with the last segment, from LaSalle to Lake Street, still in the early conceptual stages of design.  Cost for the overall project is estimate at $90 to $100 million, with funding still to be put in place.  Woods said the city was still working on receiving an invitation to  to apply for a federal loan program most often used for revenue producing projects such as tollways, with the funds paid back over a thirty year period.  If everything falls into place, construction could begin as early as this summer.  Drawing on experience from the construction of completed blocks of the river walk, time of construction is estimated at 15 to 18 months per block.

Perhaps the key component to the River Walk is making it continuous, as opposed to the current obstacle course.  “It's a river climb now,” said Woods.  “You have to climb the stairs, cross the street, and then descend a set of stairs to get down to the next section.”  To alleviate this, connection walkways, like the one recently built under the Wabash Avenue Bridge, have to be constructed to take each segment of the river walk under the bridge, itself.

The Marina, State to Dearborn

Each segment has been given its own name.  The first, from State to Dearborn, is called The Marina.
It will contain 1,900 square-feet of retail space; and a 3,000 square-foot plaza area for Al Fresco dining.  The tops of the tall-backed benches double as the surface for the bar.  “You have steps,” says Woods, “that go down, so you can sit there and enjoy the water very closely.  This might also be a spot for recreational boat docking.”

As I mentioned yesterday, there are still a lot of questions about the River Walk development, but there's also an enormous potential to moving the Chicago River towards its full potential as an invaluable civic amenity, which we'll pick up on as we discuss the other blocks of the design in future posts.

The Jetty - Wells to Franklin

(Right now, I have to start getting ready for the Landmarks Commission session on Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital, today - Thursday - beginning at 12:45 in the County Board Room of the County Building 118 North Clark.  Open to the public.)

Saturday Retro: The Architects Speak!

For today, links to a selection of our interviews and encounters with architects down through the years.  Most of them are from a while back.  In some cases, they're from a time before a young architect's most famous buildings came into being.  In others, they show a seasoned architect at the time of the opening of a major project.  Whatever the context, each interview reveals different aspects of the thinking of some of most talented architects to work in Chicago.

Rem Koolhaas [2003] - “We're not trying to emulate the current mess.  We are just as interested in the sublime . . .”

Carol Ross Barney [2004]:  “When people comment on buildings, they're really talking about their comfort level . . . What they're really saying is ‘It's nothing I haven't seen before, so its OK with me!’”

John Ronan [2004]: “You don't see many great spaces anymore.  What's the great space that's been built in Chicago in the past 25 years?”

Tod Williams and Bille Tsien [2012] “It really stems from a very deep desire to try to make the world better, which is both naive, but also very strong in what we do, a motivator in what we do.”

Jeanne Gang [2004]: “When we make form, we're thinking about how we can make the identity fluctuate.  It doesn't have to be one thing all the time.”

Helmut Jahn [2003]: “Everything is left only as much as it needs to be . . . ”

Erich Mendelsohn's Incessant Visions, plus, Canberra today, Magic and Poetry of Havana, Wednesday

Never too late to be adding to the October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

On Wednesday, October 24th, at 6:30 p.m., the Spertus Institute will be hosting screening, Incessant Visions, on the life and work of Architect Erich Mendelsohn.

In March 1933, German Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn, head of Germany’s largest architectural firm, fled Berlin, foreseeing grave consequences from Hitler’s rise to power. In Amsterdam he bumped into an acquaintance who asked what he was doing there. The reply: “I’m relocating my office.” It wouldn’t be the last time Mendelsohn would start over in a foreign land.

In Incessant Visions, Israeli director Duki Dror unfolds the amazing story of Mendelsohn’s life through letters exchanged with his wife Luise, an accomplished cellist. The film explores Mendelsohn’s rise as an architectural visionary, his friendships with Albert Einstein and Frank Lloyd Wright, and the jagged trajectory of his career as he worked in England, Israel, and the United States.

 Following the screening will be a discussion led by Stanley Tigerman.  More information here

Today, Monday, October 15th, David Headon, Advisor to the Centennial of Canberra and Australian Capital Territory projects, will discuss The Planning of Canberra, at 5:00 p.m. in Kresge Hall at Northwestern in Evanston.  The 1911 plan was the result of a competition won by Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin.

Then this Wednesday the 17th, 12:15 p.m. at the Great Cities Institute, Julio César Pérez Hernández, author of Inside Havana, will discuss The Magic and Poetry of Havana: A Glance at the Past, Present and Future of a Caribbean Metropolis.

Also this week, we've got The Core at The Eden Project at AIA/Chicago, Felipe Assadi discussing Contemporary Chilean Architecture at Crown Hall, IIT, Carol Ross Barney talking about Design for Sustainable Transportation at CAF, Anna Tobin D’Ambrosio on Cranes, Dragons and Geishas: Metalwork of the Aesthetic Movement, at the Driehaus Museum (twice), Bill Tyre on Glessner House at 125, at the Cultural Center for Landmarks Illinois and, again at CAF, Our Buildings as Ambassadors: U.S. Dept. of State's New Design Excellence Initiative.

There are 15 great programs just this week, and nearly three dozen still to come this month.  Check them all out on the October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.