With Pictures: Our Most Popular Stories of 2014

Well, it's that time again..  The long year is at a close, and, as always, it brings with it a contagion of end-of-the-year wrap-ups, to which we now add our review of Architecture in Chicago over the past twelve months.  But rather than make our own selection, we leave it to you, dear readers.  Counting up, here are the fifteen stories you read most often in 2014:

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15: 20 Feet High? How about 23 stories? The forgotten sign that Trumped Trump

14:  Heartbreak Hotel   The Short, Troubled History of the Elysian/Waldorf Chicago

13: OD'ed on Outrage: The Donald's Sign is Very Bad. The Circus of Distraction is Worse.

12: Side Lot Windfall The latest twist in the epic Wrigley Building Chronicles

11:  Mecca Flat Blues: Tim Samuelson's Triumphant Exhibition is a Time Machine to a Vanquished Architecture

10:  Scraping Off the Wrigley: Is This the Beginning of the End for the Chicago's Historic Central Manufacturing District?

9: Tarot to Tacos - Upscaling of State north of Viagra starts small, with velvet

8: Bertrand Goldberg's Walton Gardens: The history of Rush Street through the Eyes of A Single Building

7: Along Chicago's New Skyscraper Row: One Rises, One Descends, and One Just Spreads it Around

6: Urban Spectacle in Clout City: The Harriet Rees House's $8 million Move.

And for an alternative take on how Landmarks and the city bureaucracy make life a living hell for people without clout, read the harrowing story of David and Saana McClain, here.

5: Pour le Concret: Chicago's new Riverwalk Emerges

4: Say Goodbye to the 1896 George H. Phillips house

3: 111 West Wacker: Abandoned Building To Luxury Tower.

Sometimes with good timing and a bit of luck, a big risk pays off in a major way.  Just last week, only months after the building's opening, Related sold 111 West for a 300% profit.

2: Lump of Coal in Chicago Architecture's Holiday Stocking: Verizon lands with a Thud on the Mag Mile

. . . and now, our most read post (probably because it remained featured on our home page since it was published) . . .

1: Chicago: City of Light? Mayor Rahm Sees Luminous Future for his Town's Architecture

. . . and so it goes.  As we begin 2015, there's a heap of interesting things going on, and we're working to get around to writing on at least some of them.   Thank you for following us.  See you back in January, and have a great New Year!

Eight Ways of Looking at “T”

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Variations on the media obsession of moment. 

(Normally, you try not to call attention to those strips of metallic slots marking a mechanical floor slicing through an otherwise continuous wrapper of curtain wall.)

  

Previously:

Battle of the Bling Rages between two Iconic Chicago Skyscrapers

Chicago Streetscene: Rear windshield Cloud Gate

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News of the Weird: Chicago Architecture descends into Halloween's Dark Night

The webs had already begun to be spun . . .

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undernourished victims began hanging around . . .

weird creatures began to awaken . . .

an unearthly glow curled through the subways . . .

and the purplish protoplasm of Dr. Frankenstein's monster pulsed up through the donaldish spire . . .

while ghost towers stalked the streets, half clad in sheets, neither dead nor alive . . .

 

Misplaced holidays haunted the rialto . . . 

and at last  it grew impossible to tell what was more frightening - this beastie . . .

or the dark, creepy castle it had made its aerie . . .

Happy Halloween!

Clean Sweep on the Cheap at the Wrigley Building

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As we've written about before, the old plaza between the Wrigley Building and in its annex had grown increasingly derelict and forlorn, especially when seen against the sparkling new Trump Tower riverwalk.

So a few weeks ago, they shut the thing down for what was described as facade repairs on the annex, which had already undergone a rehab a while back with red granite, metal frame windows, and a thick canopy in 60's/70's modern demarcating what was then the Wrigley Building restaurant.

The new rehab is now open, replacing the restaurant entrance with a series of storefronts with large windows, white metal frames, heavy framed doors, what looks to be large extruded light panels (although they weren't lit up last night) capped by rectangular vent panels above.  The new designs are like an ugly scar against the elegance of the Wrigley's ornamented terra cotta, looking as if a 7-11 might move in at any minute.

 

The old fountain that had been boarded up for years, the desultory shrubbery - all gone, although you can still make out their footprints on the paving.  The plaza has been completely emptied out. It's now just a wide expanse of walkway.

It's as if Wrigley's new owners, the Mars candy company, simply threw up their hands and decided to just make the plaza a kind of prelude to the spectacular, lushly landscaped Trump walkway to the west.

It's an acute disappointment, especially if it's a sign of how Mars's stewardship of one of the great jewels in Chicago architecture is going to play out.  Still, if you aren't going to add anything worthwhile to the conversation, I suppose the next best thing is to just shut up and get out of the way.  Cleaning out the clutter is an improvement. Before, all those shabby stuffings in the plaza were just an obstruction to the view towards one of the more spectacular walkways in Chicago, terminated by the Trump Tower and, in the distance, the handsome new 353 N. Clark, by Lohan Anderson.

Trumptastic Riverwalk now open down all three levels

At the moment, still almost eerily quiet. Needs some tables and chairs along the terraces where a flâneur can sit basking in the the sun, sip an overpriced coffee and peer bemusedly over the top of his or her sunglasses at the world passing by.

If you're a dog, however . . . . . . you may already have pretty much everything you need.

Trump Riverwalk begins to Take Shape

For years, even as Trump Tower soared to its full 1362-foot height, this is what the adjacent riverwalk looked like:Reading about all of Trump's battles with his lenders, and the reports of the imploding real estate market, it made you wonder if the money had dried up, and all we'd be left with was the huge gravel pit filled with construction paraphernalia that included what looked like a giant wooden wok.

It didn't help that last September Crain's Chicago Business reported that Trump was having trouble finding restaurants and businesses to lease the four-level riverwalk's 83,000 square feet of retail space, and had hired a broker to pitch it for a price upwards of $130 million.

What looked like a radical value engineering on the some of the signage was also discomforting.
Recently, however, the site has been abuzz with activity.
The odds are looking better and better that we may finally get back the Wabash segment of the riverwalk that has been closed since just before the old Sun-Times building was demolished in 2003. Maybe it will even look as good as in the renderings.