No debate. No real public input.
On Friday, the Chicago Department of Planning and Development went on social media to reveal plans, with a grand total of four - count 'em, four! - cheap-looking renderings that look like they were generated in AI "skimp on the tokens" mode - of the Peter Griffin Museum of Science and Industry's intent to completely redo its main northern entrance.
The design, from Robert A.M. Stern Architects, which gave us all those ham-fisted advertising kiosks masquerading as bus shelters, is intrusive and dispiriting. The current pair of squat, graceless entrance pavilions at least have the decency not to obscure the view of the great stair and grand classical facade - they're on either side of it. The Stern rehab envisages a massive berm all along the driveway, centered with an even more massive new glass entrance that seems to stretch all the way to the grand stair itself, which is cut in two, with a new entrance carved into the middle.
A key takeaway is that the four renderings - deliberately? - are inadequate to providing a full and accurate picture of the scope, character, and details of the construction. What appears to be the case is that visitors would now enter a big glass barn, only to be funneled into another big barn, a/k/a the current great entry hall for ticketing, where it seems (again, unclear in the rendering) it's only bit of character - those shiny-thing giant columns - may be replaced by what can only be described as dying-shopping-mall whitewall.
Also unclear is the actual circulation. The rendering shows the new entry promenade leading directly at street level to that new entrance cut into the stairs, but the ticketing hall is below street level. How do visitors get down there? Same as now? Something different? The renderings offer no clue, but the design of that transition is as important as anything else.
You can see how this proposal addresses a real problem. For its first half-century, when admission was free, the grand entrance was the grand entrance. You climbed up the great staircase (little consideration for disabled access in those days), hopefully took a glance back at the great view of the grand buildings of Hyde Park across the street, and passed through the great bronze doors into Alfred P. Shaw's stunning Art Deco stairway entrance, leading directly to ticketing and the museum's great central hall.
When the unsightly, sprawling front surface parking and entrance hall were moved underground in the late 1990s, the entrance from the driveway became those ugly twin entrance pavilions, which lead to a series of not especially graceful escalators, stairways and elevators with a POMO vibe. The redesign looks to streamline that procession, a laudable goal. The execution is another story.
This ain't no I.M. Pei Louvre Pyramid, where his radical structure is given room to breath in the middle of a plaza, allowing the classical facades around it to survive unscathed.
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| By Hteink.min - commons:File:Louvre Pyramid.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38292385 |
This is a self-aggrandizing obstruction, deliberately upstaging and deprecating the classic entrance facade that has been a Chicago landmark all the way back to the days of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. If it has really become an anachronistic obstacle, tear it down and create something spectacular truly worthy of Chicago's great architectural tradition; we'll still have classicism in the soon-to-be restored south portico. Just be honest about it. Don't try to sneak it in the back door with a mediocre, dominance-seeking redesign of the front door.
And that's what may be most dispiriting about this whole thing - it smacks of trying to pull a fast one, with renderings released only after the Landmarks Commission Permit Review committee gave the project is rubber stamp. Did they know they were dealing with a turkey, but realize it's the norm that the powerful usually get a free pass?
It's too big. It's too stupid. It's too arrogant. Respect Charles Atwood's original architectural vision. Cut it back to a truly complementary glass entry pavilion stretching from driveway to grand stair that's low and only as wide as the pathway to the staircase. Let the spectacle begin on the inside. "Less is More" + "First, do no harm" - remember?
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6 comments:
The criticism of the redesign is understandable, especially when a historic façade and grand staircase are such a major part of the building’s character. A modern entrance can improve accessibility and visitor flow, but it should ideally work with the original architecture rather than competing with it. For something completely different: royalspinia
100% spot on. RAMS would piss all this design if a student presented it in a studio.
It's an egregious design that is an affront to historic preservation. The Commission seems to have lost their way with their recent decisions.
Almost unbelievable that a design like this could receive approval. It obscures the grand old building with a mundane, incongruous add-on. I say almost unbelievable because it shouldn't be a surprise in these days when anything goes if the money is there. Funny that the article I read says it's all reversible, as if they already know it will need to be reversed. How about reversing it before it gets built?
Powerful no-holds-barred critique as always, Lynn! Missed this previously, glad you were on top of it.
Let me get this straight. They are cutting straight into the front staircase. Like, that's the basic idea. Let's just have people enter into the existing underground entrance by cutting a giant rectangle out of the stairs. Whoa.
Most people are focused on how the arched glass entrance blocks the older, more regal entrance (with good reason to point that out). But man, dig deeper and we find that they are literally cutting a portal into the underground entrance.
In some ways, I can appreciate the bold vision to think, "hmmm, this newerish entrance we have underground is really nice. Big vaulted space. But it feels a bit like... a parking garage is the front of the experience. What if we could connect the front lawn to the main entrance?"
But how?
"Let's cut a giant hole in that staircase and have people enter into that."
But wouldn't that look weird with a big giant hole in the front staircase?
"Yeah, you're right, that would look weird.... I know! Let's put a giant arched glass gateway in front of that, so people won't notice that we cut a giant portal into the staircase!"
Ok, that tone aside.... nick_ulivieri on Threads made a great comment:
>In a vacuum, I sort of like the sloping, grass-covered roof. And admittedly, the last few times I've passed the MSI, I thought they could do a great deal more to activate the front lawn; despite the green space, it feels strangely uninviting. BUT it doesn't look like that area is addressed in this project and the new entry would ruin the sightline to the original entrance.
What a great comment! I was just at MSI a couple of months ago and was reminiscing with my wife about how that front entrance was THE main entrance. And it was so great to enter through this way. Not from an underground parking lot. But from an open field of grass. Where people are playing.
The root of the problem actually isn't the giant arched entrance. It's the hole they cut into the staircase. That's what they are trying to fix. Perhaps they need a better way to integrate that stair-hole concept. Instead of just trying to distract from the hole.
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