Sunday last day for Delestowicz-Wierzbowski open studio show

Today is the closing day for this weekend's showing of the latest work by artist Lora Delestowicz-Wierzbowski, whose murals include From Sea to Shining Sea, commissioned for what's billed as the world's largest truckstop, along Iowa 80. Today's showing will include the in-progress mural that she is painting for a Joplin Missouri Truck Stop. The show concludes Sunday, May 23rd, from noon to 5:00 Bridgeport Art Center/East Bank Storage; 35th and Racine, 4th floor.

Private gardens in the sky: Public squalor on the ground

Walking down Washington this week, I noticed this lovely private garden atop the beleaguered and largely empty Block 37 mall on State Street.
There is not a square inch of public greenspace in the Block 37 development. This is what the public gets:
This is the entrance to the Washington Red Line station, which has been "temporarily" closed since 2006 for construction of the pedway under Block 37. The pedway opened last November; the station remains shuttered. All that's left is this scarring, incomprehensible ugliness, put on public display.

Exactly what could the purpose of this noxious, unfinished concrete block bisecting an already narrow stair except, perhaps, to let the bureaucrats give the bird to the passerbys? It's like the entrance to King Tut's tomb, the sealed route to a burial chamber holding a quarter billion dollars of taxpayer's money, squandered on a "superstation" for an express service to O'Hare that doesn't exist and for which there was never a plan to make it exist. Construction was halted and the station sealed after officials conceded that the project was massively overbudget and no one had any idea how much more cash would have to be dumped into the pit to make it usable.

And it's the gift that keeps on giving. Every year there's $5 to $10 million in debt service payments on the bonds the CTA floated for a station that may well never open. Anywhere else, it's the kind of the scandal that would have driven a mayor from power. In Chicago, the city of sheep, it's business as usual.

The only visible remnant of the fiasco is this stairway. Call it the TIF memorial.

Louis Sullivan and Mies van der Rohe: the Same Man?

Four years ago, veteran character actor Harris Yulin, whose truly terrifying death scene in Arthur Penn's 1975 film Night Moves I've never been quite able to shake, was at the Goodman in Chicago to play Louis Sullivan in Richard Nelson's Frank's Home. The playwright's Sullivan was a closeted gay man, a desperate, drunken has-been, traveling to California to beg the play's central character, Peter Weller's Frank Lloyd Wright, for a job. Yulin, a big bear of a guy, had little in common with Sullivan physically, but his skill has actor created a grounded, recognizable human being with far more depth than Nelson's writing of the part had provided.

There was, I believe, some talk that Yulin actually wanted to do a play about Sullivan, and while that didn't happen, he's turned recidivist - architect-wise - and is currently appearing off-Broadway as Mies van der Rohe in the June Finfer play, The Glass House, about the creation of Farnsworth House, Mies's modernist masterpiece in Plano, Illinois.

The only review I've come across so far describes Yulin's performance as bringing "an excellently calibrated mix of egoism and humanity to van der Rohe . . . there's a courtliness to the actor's portrayal, as well, that makes van der Rohe more likeable than he might have been in other, coarser hands." As in life, Finfer mixes in Edith Farnsworth and Philip Johnson. Complications ensue.

A production of the Resonance Ensemble, The Glass House is running in repertory with another play having an architect, Halvard Solness, as its lead: Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, although, unlike Solness, Mies never, to the best of my knowledge, fell off one of his own towers. The two plays run through June 5th at the Harold Clurman Theatre on 42nd, and the tickets are dirt cheap ($18.00!) I doubt I'll be getting to New York, but if you do, please send me your comments if you see either play.

A number of evenings also include post-performance talks by such luminaries as MOMA's Barry Bergdoll on the 20th, New Yorker critic Paul Goldberger on the 26th, SAH President Dietrich Neumann on the 28th, and a tag team of Philip Johnson Glass House Executive Director Christy MacLear and Farnsworth House Executive Director Whitney French on June 1.

As to Harris Yulin, where does he go from here? Unconfirmed reports have him next shaving his head to play global stararchitect Rem Koolhaas in Zhang Yimou's production of Duncan Sheik's rumored seriocomic opera, Put Down Those Fireworks!

Chicago Streetscene: Oysters on Asphalt

new events: Grant Park Advisory tonight; Snøhetta exhibition, Craig Dykers lecture

Yep, still not too late to add a couple more events to the May Calendar

Grant Park Advisory Council - Monday, May 17th, Daley Bicentennial Plaza, 337 E. Randolph - a discussio of upcoming issues and events in Grant Park this summer.

Snøhetta: architecture - landscape - interior - Thursday, May 20th from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Crown Hall, IIT. The opening reception for an exhibition of the work of Oslo/New York architectural firm Snøhetta, whose work includes the recently completed Oslo Opera House, pictured here, which will run through June 4th, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m., to 5:00 p.m. The following Tuesday, May 25th, Snøhetta Senior Partner Craig Dykers will give a 12:00 p.m. lecture in Room 14 at Crown Hall.Also this week. on Tuesday, the 18th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.,, Unity Temple celebrates the restoration of the south roof slab at Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park masterpiece. And on Thursday, the 20th, at a Landmarks Illinois Preservation Snapshots lecture at 12:15 p.m. in the Claudia Cassidy Theater at the Chicago Cultural Center, City of Chicago Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson will lecture on Louis Sullivan's Idea, a preview of the eagerly awaited Samuelson/Chris Ware exhibition of the same name opening June 26th.

There are sixteen great events just this week, and nearly 30 still left in May. Check all the great stuff on the May calendar here.

Alexander Lehnerer and team win 1st Prize in CAC's Mine the Gap Competition

We'll have more about this later, but for now, we'll tell you that a team lead by architect and UIC professor Alexander Lehnerer won first prize in the Chicago Architectural Club's Mine the Gap competition for ideas on what to do with the hole left behind by the collapse of the proposal t0 build a Santiago Calatrava designed Chicago Spire. Here's a report from Fox News.




And here are the boards of the winning entry, The Second Sun, Alex Lehnerer, Team Leader, Meghan Funk, Lyndsay Pepple, Chicago, Illinois. (click on images for larger view)Second Place: Return to Paradise - Giacomo Bongiorno, Team Leader, Thomas Bormann, Djamel Kara, Paris, France.
Third Place: Lot 400 - Mohamad Hafez, Team Leader, Maegen M. McElderry, Hamden, Connecticut

More info and images to come.

Michigan Avenue Bridge Has its Cake; Others Eat it

On Friday, the Michigan Avenue Bridge, a key component of the Burnham plan that pushed development north of the river and created the Magnificent Mile, turned 90, with a small celebration at the McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum, captured here in a photograph by our indefatigable correspondent Bob Johnson. Bob was also on hand to snap one of this year's CANstructions, on display in the first floor lobby of Merchandise Mart through June 2nd, after which all the food will be donated to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. There are also barrels in which you can drop your own canned food contributions when you visit the exhibition.

Starting Saturday: Filling Calatrava's Chicago Spire hole

OK, on one level, this is a bit of shameless self-promotion, as I was lucky enough to serve on a jury with such great people as Jeanne Gang, Martin Felsen, Anthony Wood and Robert Somol judging the Chicago Architectural Club's Mine the Gap competition for ideas of what to do with the massive hole that is all that survives of the idea of building a 2,000 foot Chicago Spire, designed by Santiago Calatrava, that would have been the tallest occupied structure in North America.

On the other hand, however, there were well over 100 entries, from all over the world, and I can tell you quite objectively there's a wealth of great stuff. The winners will be announced on Saturday, the 15th, at a 12:00 p.m. event beginning with the jury talking about the competition and the work - you might even get to hear me justifying my advocacy of the entry with the quiet red stopper - followed by the opening of the exhibition.

The exhibition will give you a chance to see not only the winners, but a large selection of some of the most interesting other submissions, as well. The show will run only one week, May 15-21, from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at the John David Mooney Foundation, 114 West Kinzie.

Chicago Streetscene: Law and Disorder

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Artists, Architects Offer Up Little Sex; Much Violins

On Thursday, June 3rd, Ross Barney Architects will be offering a special preview, for "architects, artists and designers", of Painted Violins, 34 violins transformed into artworks by an array of the city's leading artists, architects, and designers. The pieces are going to be sold off in a June 24th live auction benefiting the Chicago Symphony, which will also include cocktails, live entertainment and a silent auction.

Ross Barney's own contribution, Pizzicato #1, is a witty amalgam of a violin and Chicago's iconic Picasso Statue (minus the Blackhawks cap). There's also Mono-Chromatic from Studio/Gang, Rhapsody, from Nicolae Ceausescu's former official portrait painter (reformed), Alexandra Darida, and Terry Karpowicz's oxidized Sonata in the Age of Iron. Rose Frantzen says of her Violin No. 1, that "I was divided on painting the violin because I found the wood so beautiful-- so I started in a direction with the charcoal and opted to leave it."

On the other hand, Robert Engel transforms his violin into a tin-man extravaganza in Robot Rhapsody, and John Himmelfarb, in his Double Cadenza, dismembers his into two neat halves, the bottom of which serves as a brush pot. Donna Lapietra's sleek, ebony iViolin rather dispiritedly replaces the strings with an embedded iPod. There are also contributions from artists such as Nick Cave, Mr. Imagination, Mark Campbell, Ann Ponce, the Zhou Brothers, and more.

See the entire gallery here. Download a bid form here. Bids must be received by June 24th.

The Thursday, June 3rd event at Ross Barney Architects is from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., with music by Loredo Salazar. RSVP to Peg McCarron via email.

Silo Tuesday - Not too Proud to Gravel

GSA sending Mies Federal Plaza to Hell?

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What's up with that hot-as-Hades orange glow?

ACANemy awards, Michigan Bridge at 90, FLW's reinvigorated Unity Temple slab, the future(?) of McPier - new events added to May calendar

Once again we're atoning for our oversights: we've got four great new events to add to the May calendar.

On Thursday, the 13th, it's the 4th annual ACANemy awards for CANstruction 2010 in which teams from Gensler, Alfred Benesch, Wiss, Janney, Elster, Nagle Hartray and 11 others compete to create structures entirely out of metal cans of foods that will be contributed to the Greater Chicago Food Depository after being on display at the Merchandise Mart through June 1st, where the judging and awards reception will take place 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Later that evening, at 6:00 p.m., at the Chicago Architecture foundation, Pierre-Antoine Gatier, Chief Architect of Historic Monuments, will talk about The Restoration of Modern: The Buildings of Le Corbusier. It's the high point of the Richard Morris Hunt Fellowship 2010 Reunion, taking place this year in Chicago, Wednesday through Saturday.

On Friday, the 14th, the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum will be celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Michigan Avenue bridge, with speeches, special tours, and a cake from Swedish Baker. With the spectacular sculptures by James Earle Fraser and Henry Hering, Bridge Mich doesn't look a day over thirty (although I've heard she's had a lot of work done.)

Friday evening, there'll be another major event, when Chicago cultural historian Tim Samuelson lectures on and at Louis Sullivan's Holy Trinity Church, at 7:00 p.m, in a special fundraiser for the church's restoration fund.

A week from Tuesday, on May 18th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., in Oak Park, the Unity Temple Restoration Foundation will be celebrating the restoration of the south roof slab of Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece which, entering its second century, is undergoing an extensive - and expensive - repair and restoration. There will be food, wine, tours and updates, and a chance to make your contribution to securing this world-class building for future generations.

And the Tuesday after that, May 25th, ULI Chicago will be sponsoring an extremely timely breakfast panel on The New McPier - The Future of the Convention and Tourism Industry in Chicago.

Also this week, there's a lecture on White House Interior, 1865 - 1902 at Glessner House on Tuesday, Martin Felsen on their Growing Water concept at AIA Chicago, Gordon Gill giving a lunchtime lecture on Smith+Gill's Chicago Decarbonization Plan at CAF, and Preservation Chicago's Drinking in Your History fundraiser at the Green Door - all on Wednesday.

There are over 40 great events still to come this month. Check them all out on the May calendar of Architectural Events here.

Chicago Streetscene: Cutaway

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Buildings that are a Lot Better than you've Heard: The Max Palevsky Residential Commons

Philosopher, computer geek and philanthropist Max Palevsky died this week. The son of Russian emigrants, he was born in Chicago in 1924, growing up in Humboldt Park. In 2000, he gave $20 million towards the cost of what would eventually be named the Max Palevsky Residential Commons at the University of Chicago, designed by architect Ricardo Legorreta. "Just doesn't work," was the Trib's Blair Kamin's imperial dismissal after the opening. We thought it was a good time to take another look and see how well his opinion holds up. Read all about it, see the pictures and judge for yourself, here.

Chicago Streetscene: Two Staircases

Friday: dueling student shows at UIC, IIT

This Friday, May 7th, the architecture schools at both IIT and UIC will be having their year-end shows of student work. At IIT, the exhibition runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., with the student award ceremony at 6:30. Over at UIC, the exhibition runs from 5:00 p.m., to 7:30 p.m, in the galleries of the Art and Architecture Building, 845 West Harrison, with a jury presentation to begin at 6:00, followed by the granting of student awards. This year's jury includes the Graham's Sarah Herda, Sharon Johnston of Johnston Marklee, L.A, Sylvia Lavin of UCLA and John McMorrough of OSU.

Painted Lady Strips Down

Other than harvested grain, the McCormick reaper's greatest production was family relations and their mansions. The north side was crawling with them. Founder Cyrus's 1879 palace at 676 North Rush bit the dust in the 1950's; nephew L. Hamilton's 4-story Italian palazzo at 100 E. Ontario is now the two-story Lawry's Restaurant.

Brother Leander's mansion at 660 N. Rush, however, endures. Built as a double house for Leander and his son Robert Hall, it was combined into a single residence after the father's 1900 death, and became the storehouse for R.H.s ever expanding collection of fine art. After the son's death in 1917, the building drifted. Started in 1965, it began a nearly 30-year run as the restaurant Chez Paul, and after that, offices for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Now the scaffolding's coming off from it's latest exterior rehab, and the previous painted cream facade with battleship gray accents has reverted to a more au naturel, uniform, clay-colored appearance. Better or worse?

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Chicago Architecture for the Aspiring Inebriate

So as not to be among the martyred slaves of time, be drunken, be drunken without ceasing. With wine, with poetry, with virtue, or with architecture, à votre guise.

Do I detect a trend here? I wrote yesterday of Preservation Chicago's May 12th membership fundraiser, Drinking in Your History, at the Green Door Tavern. Today, I'm reminded that, not to be outdone, Landmarks Illinois is having a Historic Pub Crawl in Hegewisch this Wednesday, May 5th.

Now, I learn that the Chicago Architecture Foundation is offering up a Happy Hour Walking Tour, Monday through Friday at 5:30 p.m., through September, each day a different tour. (Tuesdays are Millennium Park). The tours are actually two hours long - does this mean you're only guaranteed to be happy half of the time? The $16.00 tariff ($13.00 for students and seniors, free for CAF members), includes a free drink at local restaurants like the Park Grill, Rhapsody and the Berghoff at tour's end. So get your group together (if you're ten or more, advance reservations will be required), draw straws to pick the designated walker to stuff the rest of you into cabs at the end of the evening - remember: no drinking until the end of the tour - and get high on the glories of Chicago's Great Places and Spaces*

*Persistent binge drinking is a serious medical condition requiring professional medical attention. As good as you feel at 12:00 a.m., you will feel equally as miserable by 7:00. If you find yourself at the end of the bar having a heated argument with Charles Atwood, it is time to go home. Charles Baudelaire died at age 46 after suffering a massive stroke at 45. Projectile vomiting on your boss may cause job insecurity. No matter if he appears to understand you like no one else ever has, six-foot-tall rabbits do not exist. Nor does Chicago's Great Places and Spaces, at least for 2010.

Gang, Lurie, Sullivan, Samuelson, Le Corbu, Goldberg and more - fifty+ events on May Architectural Calendar

Hey, we're only two days late!

The May architectural calendar starts off in a big way this week with Christian Blaser at IIT on Monday, presentation by the finalists for SEAOI's Excellence in Structural Engineering Awards on Tuesday, SOM on the Chicago Riverwalk, CWA's architects doing other things, and Phillip H. Bess of Notre Dame at Pleasant House in Oak Park all on Wednesday, IIT's Open House and student exhibition on Friday, the 7th, plus eight more events for good measure.

Leading up to the opening of his long-awaited Louis Sullivan exhibition next month, Chicago Cultural Historian Tim Samuelson lectures twice, first at a fundraiser for the restoration of Holy Trinity Church on the 14th, and then on Louis Sullivan's Idea at the Chicago Cultural Center for Landmarks Illinois on the 20th.

Pierre-Antoine Gatier, Chief Architect of Historic Monuments and General Inspector of Historic Monuments, lectures on restoring the buildings of Le Corbusier at CAF on the 13th, where Gordon Gill talks about his firm's Chicago Carbon Plan on the 12th, and Julio César Pérez Hernández talks about Preserving Havana Architecture on the 25th.

On May 26th, Jeanne Gang lectures at Fullerton Hall for the Architecture and Design Society of the Art Institute, and on the 27th at the Driehaus Museum in the old Nickerson Mansion, Roberta A. Mayer talks about her book, Lockwood de Forest and the East Indian Craft Revival. Robert Furhoff discusses White House interiors at Glessner House on the 11th, and Brian Reis on Frank Lloyd Wright and the Fine Art Interior at Second Presbyterian on the 6th.

And there's more! Over 50 events, even before we start adding all the stuff we missed. And if it all just sends you reeling, we especially recommend Preservation Chicago's May 12th fundraiser, Drinking in Your History, at the Green Door Tavern.

Check out all the great events here.

Chicago Streetscene: Trains, boats, and automobiles

Chicago Streetscene: Ritz Pit

When complete, it will be ultra high-end, but for now, a worker climbs out of the foundation work for Lucien Lagrange's Ritz-Carlton Residences on Michigan Avenue

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