Last Three Days for Kickstarter Campaign to Restore Alfonso Iannelli's graveside memorial

Color pencil rendering by Alfonso Iannelli

 2013 has been the year that brought Chicago sculptor, designer and architect Alfonso Iannelli out of the shadows, with both a major exhibition at the Cultural Center curated by Tim Samuelson, and a lavishly illustrated monograph by David Jameson, Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design.

Now, there's only only this Saturday to help a Kickstarter campaign to restore Iannelli's monument to Georgia Guard make its $15,000 goal.  Iannelli created the memorial in 1927 in Park Ridge's Town of Maine Cemetery for the child of a close friend. The plot is also Iannelli's own final unmarked resting place.

Richard Nickel photograph

Ultimately, the larger plan includes creating a marker for Iannelli.  For now, the Kickstarter campaign, administered through Preservation Chicago, hopes to begin to restore the cast-concrete monument to Georgia Guard, which, having reached the end of its own natural life, has weathered to the point of near collapse.

The Kickstarter campaign must reach its $15,000 goal by 11:00 a.m. EST, this Saturday, November 23rd, or the funding will be lost.  You can read more and contribute here. 

UPDATE [11/23/2013]:  With 90 minutes to go, the campaign has met and exceeded its goal, with $17,036 in pledges.

Read More:

Artist Rediscovered: Alfonso Iannelli: Modern by Design

Creation and the Politics of Gender:  Modernism's Messengers - the Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli.

Alderman Reilly put the brakes to the Realtors, plus What's Up with that Shear Wall at the new Hilton Garden Inn?

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The Billy Goat Tavern and Benito Juárez can rest easy, at least for a while.  According to 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly, the bulldozers won't be coming anytime soon to the National Association of Realtors Building just north of the Wrigley Building on.Michigan Avenue.

 “As far as I'm concerned, the project that was described in the paper last week is not real.  I have not reviewed any materials related to massing, design, traffic - any of it.  In fact the first I heard about a Realtor Building demolition was when I read about it in the newspapers.  So if the local alderman's not aware of all these grand plans, it isn't real.  Unfortunately, when leaks like that occur, it scares a lot of people, [Billy Goat owner] Sam Sianis down in the base - a lot of people care about the Plaza of the Americas, especially me, because I'm the one who compelled the Realtors to repair it on their dime.”

42nd ward Alderman Brendan Reilly

Reilly, responding last night to a Chicago Tribune article last week on the Realtors plans for a one-to-two million square foot tower on their site, clarified the situation with the Avenue of Americas plaza, anchored by the statue of Benito Juárez, that separates the Realtors building from the Wrigley annex.

“It's not for them to tear down.  Those are all city easements under there.  And by the way, I would never let them take away the Plaza of the Americas.  It's a very important plaza to a lot of people in Chicago.  So whatever plans they want to develop, I'm all ears, but they have not come in to share with me .”

“They have a lot of work to do before they can come in and see me, pitch me on a proposal, but whatever they come up with, whether it involves taking that building down or not, it's going to be subject to a very rigorous public process, and it will be open to the public.  This will be a very deliberative process, so nothing's going to get done in the middle of night over there. ”

As we near the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy this Friday, another historic factor of the current building came to light in a column by the Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg.  In 1963, the Realtors building, then the Apollo Savings building, was the headquarters of the broadcast division of United Press International, and it was where the bulletins on the breaking news of the death of the president went out to the world.

Reilly spoke at a meeting he sponsored last night at Harry Weese's 17th Church of Christ Scientist at which plans for a new 25-story Hilton Garden Inn on a small vacant lot next to the church were presented to the community for comments.

unlike what this photograph may imply, architect David Ervin's hands are actually completely normal

Project architect David Ervin of G/R/E/C architects explained that there are no windows along the western facade of the hotel because, according to Chicago's building code, they would require a 12-foot setback that would take up a quarter of the tight, 48-foot wide site.  Instead, the facing of wall behind 17th Church will be what, according to Ervin, 

. . . could best be described as a mosaic of metal panel.  There's five tones of metal panel.  What we did is we worked with a photograph of the Chicago river with a kind of of light reflectance on the river itself .  We digitized that photograph so [the panels] are acting as pixels.  The further away you get , the more you might perceive the idea of light reflecting on water.  We thought it was a really nice way to handle this facade, which though it doesn't have any windows, has a very, very prominent building to the west of it.  We wanted to frame that building .  We wanted to make the composition of the church building and our building one actually working with the other.  So we think that by going from the darker to the lighter tones we  create a frame for the church building. 

Ervin assured the audience that the wall of panels of aluminum with a baked-on finish wouldn't create the kind of death-ray metal facades that have lately been in the news for burning up cars and gardens in London and Dallas.

Our intent was not to have a reflecting building in that sense in any way, shape or form.  It's not going to be a mirror reflectance.  We're going for matte finish tones.  Inherently, it will has some reflectivity, of course, but it's going to be what I would a low level, lower than than the glass.  The glass will actually have a higher reflectivity.  The panels will be selected to be not highly reflective, so we're not creating any glare.

The building will offer 24 floors with guest rooms facing to the north and south, above a lobby floor and two levels beneath.

The building base is clad in limestone.  We selected limestone because it seems very compatible with both neighbors , with the Chicago Motor Club and the travertine of this building. [17th Church]  It's not a very wide facade.  It's only 48 feet, so we have a very modest steel and glass entry canopy.  The real elements of collaboration are the signage.   We originally presented the kind of Hilton Garden Inn standard signage .  It was suggested to us that we kind of make it a little bit more compelling than what you might see on a normal HGI.  We developed a smaller but richer kind of steel on aluminum back-lit [vertical] sign and then a metal sign [on the front] the building.  That's the extent of the signage.  Nothing up high on the building, which would be prevented by ordinance anyway.  

There are no parking spaces for guest.  Hotel planners expect about 40 valet vehicles on an average night for the 191 rooms.  The building would rise next to the landmark Chicago Motor Building, which is also slated for re-use as a hotel.  The two buildings would share a 5-space valet parking space and the small airspace gap between the buildings would be filled by an expansion joint to keep out moisture.  The back-alley northern facade of the building would be covered in charcoal-colored stucco finish, “basically dark gray tones to allow this [west] facade to pop.”

 Lobby and guest floor floor plans.  Note that the only window on the west side of the building (to the left on the drawing is the small one at the back where the building has a setback that meets the 12-foot fire code requirement.

If all goes according plan, construction - with Walsh the contractor - will begin soon, with a best-case opening in spring of 2015.

Read more:

The Realtors Dream of a New Skyscraper

Windows?  We Don't Need No Stinkin' Windows at the Hilton Garden Inn

Orange You Glad to See Me? Hubbard Place Goes Inverted Dreamsicle

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It seems we've reached the time of the year when our only choices are frigid and clear or warm and gloomy.  Today, Saturday in Chicago, we've apparently gone for warm and gloomy.  So I'm thinking we could use a spot of not uncontroversial color to cut through the drab.

The 43-story Hubbard Place, across from the East Bank Club at 360 West Hubbard in Chicago's River North, is the latest residential tower from Solomon Cordwell Buenz, with Daniel Weinbach and Partner's generous landscaping complete with a new sculpture, Lotus, by Chicago sculptor Terrence Karpowicz.  (See the photos of the installation from the indomitable Jyoti Srivastava's Public Art blog, here.)

Channeling David Hovey, SCB's original renderings gave their patented rounded-curved tower

orange accents along the building's edges.  Orange was even a key color in the logo and promotional materials for the building.

Looking at the structure now, most of those accents seem not to have made the final cut, but still survive in the whimsical carrot planters that flank the entrance.

To the south, the garage structure next to the building is pure vanilla.

To the north, however, even as it's dominated by the huge window wall that captures the Sexton lofts across the street, you can start to see a slight seep of orange at the corner.

Round that corner to the east facade, and there's AN EXPLOSION!

I'm not quite sure what to make of this.  It kind of screams 1960's supermarket.  Or a bar chart of a mental breakdown.  It's like when you were a kid and you had a Lego set, and you were trying to build a white building but you ran out of bricks, so you had to make do with leftover colors that usually stayed in the box.  And if you think I'm being mean, check out what some of the Sexton residents had to say.

A city's character is  made of many things.  Some good.  Some bad.  Some so inscrutably bad they become their own kind of landmark, a poke in the eye that won't be ignored.  The colorstrips of the Hubbard Place garage are that kind of landmark.  They bring a whole new outbreak of crazy-quilt stitchery to Chicago's urban fabric. 

Chicago Historic Schools: A Great new Website documents over a century of vital buildings and their architects

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I was out in Humboldt Park over the weekend taking pictures of John Ronan's new addition to Erie Elementary Charter School - which I hope to write about tomorrow, in time for the school's Thursday Open Doors Benefit and Open House and Reception -  when, just in the next block, I encountered the splendid 1884-1893 Alexander von Humboldt Elementary . . .

Renovated as recently as 2008, the structure now stands empty, one of the 54 schools closed this year by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.  Searching on Google for more information, I came across this informative history of von Humboldt on Chicago Historic Schools, a site I had never encountered before.

And here's why:  it's brand new, and it's terrific.  A collaboration between Frances O'Cherony Archer, Chicago Park District historian Julia Bachrach, Elizabeth A. Patterson, architect Bill Latoza, supplying many historical images, and the Art Institute's James Iska and Brooke Collins adding contemporary photographs.

A group of passionate historians and architects produced this website; they are not affiliated with Chicago Public Schools.

The schools they document represent some of the most important architecture in the city.  Few may make the standard architectural guidebooks, but they are both very fine buildings in their own right, and the kind of structural anchors that define the character of their respective neighborhoods.  They are time capsules of Chicago's architectural and social history, and Chicago Historic Schools fills out their stories to a depth not previously available.

There's also profiles of  22 school district architects, from the somewhat well known Dwight Perkins, a member of the Steinway Hall gang whose innovative work including such schools as Graeme Stewart, Trumbell and Schurz.  The facade of his former office across the Water Tower survives today as an upscale fashion boutique.  

Far more rare are profiles of 22 school district architects from Louis Sullivan's mentor, John H. Edelmann, to August Bauer, Frederick Baumann, Paul Gerhardt and more. If it consisted of nothing more than these architectural biographies, Chicago Historic Schools would be an invaluable website.

There are currently 24 structures on Chicago Historic Schools, with more to be added in the future.  There are also pages on three lost buildings.   Two of the existing schools on the site - von Humboldt and Perkins's Trumbull - now stand empty as part of this year's great wave of closings.  The advocacy of the “passionate” group producing Chicago Historic Schools  has not only produced a great addition to the record of Chicago's architectural heritage, but their advocacy stands to increase awareness of the irreplaceable value of vital, historic structures that are increasingly being treated as  disposable.

© James Iska

We Have a Winner! Place your bets: Willis Tallest Building Decision to be handed down Tuesday morning

Update, Tuesday morning:  The CTBUH has just ruled the One World Trade gains the title of North America's tallest.   In response to a question from the Trib's Blair Kamin, the CTBUH denied they responded to political pressure.  "Ultimately, these were 25 rational people who made a non-emotional decision."  Five hour meeting, heated debate, one abstention.  Blair's report.  And the official press release.

Ladies and gentleman! 

For the title, Tallest Building in North America . . . 

In this corner, at 1,353 feet, weighing in at 445,000,000 pounds, Willis Sears TOWER!!!!

photograph: Joe Mabel, Wikipedia

And in this corner,  at 1776 feet, minus hundreds of feet of TV antenna (or maybe not), One World Trade CENTER!!!!! 

Will the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's "height committee" (there's a marker outside the meeting room:  You Must be THIS Tall to Serve") declare that the antenna a "spire" and include it in measuring the building's height, thereby clinching the title for New York, or will reject the antenna as a gaming-the-system poseur, leaving the Willis winner and still champion?

I know, the suspense is killing you.  But you only have to wait until tomorrow.

On Tuesday, November 12, concurrent press conferences - 10:00 a.m. in Chicago; 11:00 a.m. in New York - CTBUH will announce its final decision.  I'm hoping we'll see a Le-Sacre-like riot breaking out in the losing city.  If the decision goes against Chicago, look for the Willis's 300-foot-high antennas to be quickly enwrapped in styrofoam and declared structural for a return match.

And whatever side you're on - please, please, please:  Wager wisely.

Also Read:

Freedom Tower, from Tragedy to Farce

The Realtors Dream of a New Skyscraper, as Billy Goat's, Benito Jaurez and his plaza Contemplate their Future

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The Trib's Mary Ellen Podmolik reported late Monday that the National Association of Realtors has plans to demolish their building at 430 North Michigan and trade up its 218,000 square feet for a 1 to 2 million square-foot skyscraper, further sealing the canyonization of Michigan Avenue.

The 11-story 430 North Michigan was designed by architect Fred H. Prather and opened in 1963 as the home to Apollo Savings and Loan, which collapsed in 1968.   The building gained national  notoriety as the home to fictional therapist Bob Newhart, immortalized in the sitcom's opening.

The demolition of 430 North Michigan will take a lot of Chicago history with it.  Not the building itself.  It was never landmark quality, and while it was originally an expression of mid-century modernism,  in 2008 it got a glitzy refacing and sprouted wings at the roof.  In 2011, however, the Wrigley Company sold the Realtors the building behind 430 that beginning in 1934 was Riccardo's, the city's premier bar for newspaper folk, complete with murals by Ivan Albright.  By the 1970's, Riccardo's began a long descent, and the building survives today as a restaurant named after its address, 437 Rush.

But then there's the Billy Goat Tavern, another newsman's hangout frequented by the likes of Studs Terkel and Mike Royko.  With an entrance just west of lower Michigan Avenue, it's called the basement of 430 home for half a century, and will also be be evicted, if only temporarily.

Of far more concern is the status of the Plaza of the Americas, which sits on a raised viaduct that stretches back from Michigan Avenue between the Realtors Building to the north and the Wrigley Building Annex to the south.

In 2010, the depressingly derelict plaza underwent a renovation.  The good news was the $750,000 cost was picked up by the realtors.  The bad news, as the Trib's Blair Kamin noted, was that it was a hack job, done without the participation of an architect or landscape architect.  Unlike the original design of the plaza, there are no benches or seating inviting pedestrians to linger.  The clear message is “look, but keep moving.”

The larger question is why the National Association of Realtors picked up the tab.  In negotiations with 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly, it came to light that the the Association was “legally responsible for maintenance of the Plaza.” Does this mean they own it?  And if they do own it, will it be usurped in whole or in part by the new building?  Podmolik's report only says that the new development will include “building and plaza space.”

Right now, there's a shortage of details.  The entire announcement is slightly vaporous.  No architect has been named, no groundbreaking date set. Podmolik reported that the Association's spokesman would only say “many details need to be worked out and that no decisions are final.”   The Realtors could be trolling for financing that may never come.

If it does, however, we need to make sure that the Plaza of the Americas is not only not lost or abridged, but that Julian Martinez's sculpture of Benito Jaurez looks down on a plaza that is finally worthy both of Mexico's first President and of the site's pivotal location.

Wednesday: Asthma and Housing; Today: Carlo Caldini - more for November

We're still adding content to the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events (and soliciting feedback from our readers whether it's worth all the work to keep the calendar going into 2014.)

Wednesday morning at University Center, the Chicago Asthma Consortium is sponsoring a half-day seminar on the rarely discussed topic of Asthma and Housing, taking design beyond aesthetics to the home environment and its effects on asthma sufferers.  It includes lectures, a panel and roundtable discussion, with participants including Catherine Baker of Landon Bone Baker, Ginger Chew of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, caregiver Sophia Ragland, among many others.

Tonight, Tuesday, at the Graham Foundation, Florence-based architect Carlo Caldini, will discuss his 1970's co-founding of Gruppo 9999, and his contributions to the 1972 MOMA exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, which is the focus of the Graham's current exhibition, Environments and Counter Environments.  Then on Thursday, as the future of the Egyptian-styled former Nick's Uptown is debated before the Landmarks Commission, preservationist and historian Heather Plaza-Manning will discuss Romancing the Sphinx: American Egyptian Revival Architecture at the Uptown Public Library.

These are just a few of the over dozen great item happening just this week to check out on the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Lambert and Arets, Plensa and Kreloff, Enquist, Bannos, Achilles, Sarah Morris and More - it's the November Calendar! (endangered species?)

You may have noticed, the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events was a bit late this month.  Like eight days late.   Can you imagine how many people were writing me asking where it was?

Would you believe . . . one?

I'm coming to the conclusion that the monthly calendar is an idea whose time has gone.  Readership is not large.  Throughout all the days of  a given month, there are fewer cumulative pageviews for the calendar than for a single average post.  It often seems the only people reading the calendar are the those who are on it.  Since I'm now back to a regular 9 to 5 job, my side hours are limited, and I'm thinking they might be better spent on other projects.  So, as with the printed version of The Onion but a whole less funnier, December may see the final version of the monthly architectural calendar.   If you have any thoughts on the matter, pass 'em on

On a cheerier note, as always, there's no small number of great events still to come in November.  This Thursday, Phyllis Lambert will be in conversation with Wiel Arets at Crown Hall and signing copies of her book, Building Seagram.  Also this week, Carlo Caldini is at the Graham on Tuesday, and Jon B. DeVries and D. Bradford Hunt will discuss their new book, Planning Chicago: How Did We Get Here? and why planners always seem to incorporate an initial somewhere in their name, noontime at AIA Chicago on Wednesday, the same afternoon the Chicago Architecture Foundation has their annual Patron of the Year luncheon at the Palmer House, and SOM's Phil Enquist  discusses the Great Cities, Great Lakes, Great Basin initiative lunchtime at CAF, where it's the subject of a just-opened exhibition of the same name..  DeVries and Hunt will also be putting in a appearance at Open Books on Institute Place Monday the 18th.

More? How about Pamela Bannos talking about 1836 through the Chicago Fire at the MCA on Saturday the 16th, where filmmaker Sarah Morris has a preview screening and talk on Tuesday, the 19th, the same day David Wilts of Arup discusses The Smarter Building:  What It is - and Why Bother noontime at AIA/Chicago, and Rolf Achilles talks about his book, The Chicago School of Architecture- Building the Modern City, 1880-1910, at the Glessner House Museum..  The Chicago Midwest Chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art gives out its First Annual Acanthus Awards at the Elks National Memorial, also on Saturday the 16th.

On Wednesday the 20th Jaume Plensa is in conversation with Reed

Kroloff at MCA, and on Thursday the 21st, Jean Guarino discusses Construction, Demolition and the Remaking of LaSalle Street for Friends of Downtown at the Cultural Center, and designer Lloyd Natof is at Unity Temple in Oak Park.

Catch it while you can.  Check out all the great items on the November Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Happy Ending for Little Egypt?

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[Update, December 9th, 2013: On Thursday, December 5th, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks voted unanimously to confer preliminary landmark status on Nick's Uptown.]

Nick's Uptown, the Egyptian-styled Hupmobile showroom that was previously the Cairo Supper Club, is on this Thursday's agenda of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks for Preliminary Landmark Designation.  The bar recently closed and the building acquired by Thorek Hospital, which has a record of demolishing and landbanking. No designation report posted yet, although there is one - reflecting the commission staff's usual excellent work - on the 1890 former James Mulligan School on Sheffield, currently undergoing rehab as housing after a long period standing empty.

photograph: Commission on Chicago Landmarks

Read our original story, Little Egypt on Sheridan Road, here.

Model Chicago Engulfed by Water at CAF, plus AIC, Maggie Daley Park: Thursday Updates Edition

Smokefall production still, courtesy Goodman Theatre

As we continue to work on the November calendar, and just in general take a breather (including taking in Noah Haidle's Smokefall, with the great Mike Nussbaum, at the Goodman Thursday night - closing Sunday), we turn to our indefatigable correspondent Bob Johnson to bring you this update, which begins at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, where its striking model of Chicago . . .

photograph: Lynn Becker

. . . now well into its fifth year, has seen even its tallest tower eclipsed by twin walls of water . . .

photograph: Bob Johnson

 . . .  that form the backdrop for CAF's new exhibition, Great Lakes, Great Cities, Great Basin: Bold Ideas for the Great Basin Park . . .

You know your neighborhood, but do you know your basin? Through this exhibition, the urban designers at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP issue a call to arms for all of us to think about our water, our boundaries and our identity. The Great Cities, Great Lakes, Great Basin exhibition depicts the Great Basin as one region defined by the watershed rather than political boundaries. Visit this exhibition and learn the impact you make not only in your immediate neighborhood or city, but in the basin in which you live.

Now open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

photograph: Bob Johnson

Meanwhile, Bob provides us this aerial shot of the progress at the $55 million Maggie Daley Park, which the Sun-Times' Tina Sfondeles reported  this week has reached the halfway mark towards a soft opening next fall, and a final completion in 2015.  Viewer drivable webcams here.

And that crane you see in the picture hovering over the Modern Wing of the Art Institute?  That was for the installation of the latest installation at the sculpture garden, Ugo Rondinone's we run through a desert on burning feet, all of us are glowing our faces look twisted, which runs through April 20 of next year, by which time the Picasso's and Matisse's should be back from Ft. Worth and the now closed Modern Wing third floor re-opened..

Now, back to the calendar.  Or maybe just a nap.