The Heretofore Unmentioned: MDA City Apartments

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I came to the MDA City Apartments, at the southeast corner of Lake and Wabash, during Open House Chicago last year, mostly as an opportunity to get on their roof and take pictures of the grotesques atop 203 North Wabash.  As I learned then, and again this year, the MDA is one of those buildings few have heard of but that has its own interesting history.

Designed by Daniel Burnham, Jr.  and completed in 1927, it's 24 floors, 290-feet high.  Originally known as the Medical and Dental Arts Building, it was home to both the Chicago Dental Society and the Chicago Medical Society, as well as a larger roster of doctors and dentists.  In October of 1939, it was the site of the first meeting of the Chicago chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Their 1940 New Year's Eve party was noted as featuring a "large assortment of sobered up piano players."  The Chicago Literary Club, founded in 1874, moved to the 22nd floor as a cheaper alternative to their previous lodgings in the Fine Arts Building, and the same floor was the site of 10 cent lectures sponsored by the Marxist publication The New Masses in the 1930's.  In 1929, the Tribune reported that Mrs. Benjamin Baskin gave birth to a baby boy in one of the elevators.  I'd like to think the building's large population of doctors included least one obstetrician.

Over time, the structure evolved into a more traditional office building, and was known for the rather ugly paint job on its top floor facades.  In 2003, the building, renamed MDA City Apartments, underwent a $45 million upgrade by Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture that saw the offices converted to 190 luxury rental units, with an outlet of the Elephant and Castle restaurant chain on the first floor of the limestone clad base, which also includes an Artisan Pastoral Cheese Shop.

During Open House Chicago, I got a highly informative tour of the building from Lauren of the Management Office, which included the handsome "Sky Park" at the top, with both a club room . . .

and an outside deck offering striking views of the Loop L going both south and west . . .

the Chicago skyline . . .

 and Millennium Park . .  .

From the 1950's until it moved into it's own building at the base of MOMO at State and Randolph, the Booth/Hansen building now known as the Joffrey Ballet tower, and was one of the locations used by Robert Altman for his film, The Company.  This barre is the last visible artifact of the Joffrey's tenancy.

The space on 8th floor was once a medical amphitheater for observing operations, complete with skylight.  Today, it's split into two segments - the exercise room, and a film theater.

The blank-walled east side of the building featured a large mural, Loop Tattoo by Johanna Poethig (thanks to the Chicago Architecture Blog for the info) . . .

 . . . which is due to be covered up by 73 East Lake, a 42-story tall apartment tower now rising, that will wrap around MDA, facing both Lake and Wabash.

And, of course, there's the great view of its neighbors to the north, on the building now becoming a Virgin International hotel (can you tell it was designed by Rapp and Rapp?) . . .

 

October in Chicago is Crazy Busy: Roggeveen's Go West, Arets, Vinoly, Tigerman, Stern, Gehry, Jahn(x2), Open House Chicago, MAS Context Analog - much, much more

Now up: At well over 60 items already, we're setting a blistering pace for the October 2012 Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

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You want architects?  At UIC, there's Daan Roggeveen of the Go West Project on the 8th, and Tom Leader on the 29th.  At IIT, there's new dean Wiel Arets this coming Wednesday, the 3rd, Kevin Daly on the 10th, Felipe Assadi and Ignacio Volante of Chile's Universidad Finis Terrae on the 16th, and Christian Kerez on the 24th.  On Monday, the 8th, Rafael Viñoly is at U of C's new Logan Center for Arts - his huge New Hospital Pavilion opens next year.  On the 17th, Carol Ross Barney talks about Design for Sustainable Transportation at CAF lunchtime, where Mary T. Schaffer talks about Target's rehab of Louis Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott store on the 31st.

You want benefits?  How about Helmut Jahn x2?  On the 3rd, he's being honored at Facets Multimedia's Screen Gems Benefit, while on the 26th, he receives the AIA Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award to Designight 2012 with Victoria Lautman.  And on the 13th, at the Art Institute's Modern Ball, Stanley Tigerman is honored for his lifetime achievements and participates in a dialogue with Frank Gehry and Robert A.M. Stern, moderated by Geoffrey Baer.

For ambition and shear density, nothing matches the 2012 edition of Open House Chicago, Saturday and Sunday the 13th and 14th, offering often rare access to over 150 buildings both downtown and in twelve other Chicago neighborhoods, from Hyde Park to Edgewater.  (Expect to reach me only through Twitter on those days)

We got Chicago Ideas Week 2012, including events with Martin Felsen, Devon Patterson,  Navy Pier,  Gunny Harboe and Tim Samuelson on saving the Rookery, and Steve Wiesenthal and Anthony Shou of Kirkegaard Associates on their new Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at U of C.

We got 111 West Wacker (formerly the stalled Waterview) at the Cultural Center for Friends of Downtown, Ulrich Dangel of Nicholas Grimshaw talking about The Eden Project at AIA Chicago, which is also offering a demo tour of Arup's Experience SoundLab and a talk by Matthew Seymour on The Churches of Edward Dart.  On the 27th, Landmarks Illinois offers up this year's edition of the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Awards.

Then there's SOM's Eric Keune and the State Department's Casey Jones and Lydia Muniz talking about the new U.S embassy in Beijing and State's New Design Excellence Initiative at CAF,  Scott Merrill at the Driehaus, Chris Ware and his new book Building Stories at Unity Temple, an Archi Salon led by Clare Lyster inside the galleries of the Art Institute's Building:  Inside Studio Gang Architects, Richard Pare discusses Soviet Modernist Architecture at the Graham, and William Tyre talks about Glessner House at 125 for Landmarks Illinois at the CCL, while a Halloween tradition continues as Glessner House again offers up Edgar Allan Poe readings, and Haunted Tours of Historic Prairie Avenue.

I've never seen so many conferences in a single month, and we're still adding.MAS Context is presenting Analog - Second edition, an all day event with speakers from Jimenez Lai to MCA's Dieter Roelstraete and more at Marsha target="_blank"ll Brown's NewProjects "urbanism studio" on South State. The Architects Newspaper is hosting a day-two symposium, Facades+Innovation, at IIT, with a free keynote by Fernando Romero.  SEAOI offers up symposiums on Structures, learning from the Indiana State Fair Collapse Incident,and Concrete Mix Design

OK, I'm exhausted just talking about it all.  To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, she who is tired of Architecture in Chicago in October is tired of life.  Start filling out your own dance cards by checking out the cornucopic October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

New: Patrica Patkau, Doug Fogelsen, Wright's Roots Extended - more for September!

The hits just keep coming to the September Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events, with several new items just added.

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We've just added a lecture by Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Model winner Patricia Patkau of Patkau Architects, Vancouver.  6:00 p.m.,  Tuesday, September 18th, will be in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago, to give a lecture for SAIC (AIADO).

This Wednesday, September 12th, student group iitExposure kicks off a lecture series on architectural photographers with Doug Fogelson, 12:30 in the Lower Core at Crown Hall.  (More on this interesting series, and on the great new Vivian Maier show, tomorrow.)  Later Wednesday (6:00 p.m., Mikyoung Kim lectures at IIT at the Campus Center.

Also on Wednesday, Bastiaan Bousma discusses this year's edition of the amazing Open House Chicago at CAF lunchtime, Massamilliano Fuksas is at the Graham Tuesday evening.  Thursday, it's Larry Levy at the Chicago Club for Crain's, Rick Valicenti at the SAIC, and Glessner Houses' 125th anniversary Gala at Symphony Center.  And much more.

On the exhibition front, Tim Samuelson's don't-miss exhibition, Wright's Roots, has been extended at Expo 72 Gallery, 72 East Randolph, through October 14th.

There are over 25 great items just this week, and over 60 still come this month.  Check it all out - plus three new exhibitions - on the September Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.