If the Thompson Center were a new building, we'd all be praising it to the skies. The boldness of that great sweeping curve of glass in front, the soaring, public spirited atrium, topped by a skylight. The exposed elevator shaft, the graceful arcades.
But it's not a new building. It's a gut rehab, created out of the bones of one of the greatest civic spaces and structures of the 20th century. Preservationists are praising it to the skies, "Look - we saved the Thompson Center - Victory!"
So I get to be the old man yelling at clouds, or more, accurately, the little boy saying, "I say it's spinach, and I say to hell with it."
Not that there's, when it comes to the interior, much to go on. As far I as know, no reporter has ever been let inside, no one's talking; there's only period proclamations from on high. Google releases images much as Mike Ditka said Bears owner George Halas did salaries, "He tosses nickels around like manhole covers." Every many months, there's a carefully controlled release of a couple more renderings, following Google's basic business model of sucking up all our personal data while allowing only the smallest sliver of light to escape their black hole of an operation.
