The Modern takes Wing, OWP/P gets Cannonized, and Firms Conspire: Chicago Architecture in the News

Hedy Weiss takes on the Modern Wing - After the Trib and Blair Kamin did their mega-piece last Sunday. This week it's the Sun-Times' turn, complete with floorplans and many quotes from architect Renzo Piano, including, "In some ways Chicago invented modern architecture as we know it." Quick: get this man to Bob Somol for deprogramming!

OWP/P gets Cannonized - Crain's reports on how, only months after its big 50th birthday anniversary, the venerable Chicago architectural firm has been acquired by New York based Cannon Design.

Chicago Design Matters? - Crain's also reported this week that Studio/Gang, Krueck and Sexton and DeStefano + Partners have joined forces to market themselves globally, with an emphasis on what were, until recently, the boom economies of China, India and the Middle East.

van Berkel Burnham Pavilion Rising in Millennium Park

With a special thanks to the indefatigable Bob Johnson for his stunning aerial shots, we bring you these pictures of the construction of the pavilion designed by UNStudio's Ben van Berkel that will help commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Daniel Burnham's 1909 of Plan of Chicago. To the left, you can also see workmen putting the finishing touches on Renzo Piano's 600-foot-long Nichols Bridgeway linking Millennium Park to the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute.

Gratuitous Chinese dinosaur shot

The plywood base is going in, the steel structure rising. Eventually, everything will be painted a high gloss white, but for now you can see the materials in the full glory of their natural color, the diagonal members that will be concealed beneath the hanging chads of the final design, and imagine the roof that will mirror the plinth to create a sandwich of cityscape views through the pavilion's interior.Van Berkel's pavilion is one of an unmatched pair, the second being a nomadic tent-like design by Zaha Hadid, that are both set to make their debut June 19th.

Tonight: Friends of the Rosenwald at the Spertus for panel on the Julius Rosenwald Fund and African American Art

We're already finding we've missed a number of events for the May calendar, and one we particularly regret not giving you more of a heads up on is tonight, May 7th, at 6:00 P.M. at the Spertus Institute, Race, Culture, & Philanthropy, a panel being held presented in conjunction with the Spertus's exhibition, A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, which runs through August 16th. Here's how the email describes it:

The Black Metropolis National Heritage Area Commission and Friends of the Rosenwald Building (Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments) invite you to join them for a provocative discussion exploring the complex history of Jewish philanthropy and African American culture . . . Meet the panelists at a reception immediately following.

We've written about the Rosenwald Apartments (pictured above, as they could be again) before, and of the city's dropping the ball, especially in light of the need for athlete housing for the 2016 Olympics, by not doing anything to restore or even acquire this historic property, which has recently gone back on the market at what looks to be a bargain basement price.

James Grossman will moderate tonight's panel, which will include Cheryl Greenberg, Adam Green, Paul Mendes-Flohr, and Arthur M. Sussman. Tickets are $12.00, $8.00 for Spertus members and $5.00 for students. Call 312/322.1773. More information on-line. If you get there early you can also catch the exhibition, and, as this is a Thursday afternoon, museum admission is free.

Ad Creep at the old Bus Shelter

Advertising is a wonderful thing, but sometimes, as someone once said whose name momentarily escapes me, less is more.

We've gotten used to the heavy-limbed Robert Stern bus shelters that have popped up all across the city, part of a 2002, twenty-year deal the Daley administration reached with the Paris-based street advertising behemoth JC Decaux that's slated to bring in $300,000,000 in revenues.

Decaux currently claims in excess of 3,000 "advertising panels in the best locations . . . 24-hour backlit . . ." Now, without increasing the number of shelters, Decaux appears to have found a way of more than doubling the available ad real estate by now placing ads not only on the two, shorter, end panels, which has been the standard until now, but also across the full length of the wide panel in the back.

Our roving correspondent Bart Swindall tipped me off to the new layout you see here, on a shelter on LaSalle just south of Wacker, and I've seen them in other locations, as well. Could it be a start of a trend?
No doubt Descaux and the city would argue the new panels, with their mesh transparency, is no worse than the ones you see on the CTA, but to me those panels make looking out a bus or "L" car window like seeing the world through cataracts. Somehow, I doubt this added clutter benefits anyone - not the streetscapes, and not even the advertisers, whose message stands to fade more and more into the background once the initial novelty wears off and the Cinerama-shaped ads become so much unseen visual street noise.

Chicago Streetscene: The Flowers that Bloom Edition

New DC Design Rebuts Bunker-Loving Chicago Children's Museum Fear of the Light

One of the almost innumerable fallacies propagated by the Chicago Childrens Museum and its supporters in their quest to jam a bunker-like construction into precious open space in Grant Park is that it's OK to bury their nightmare vision deep underground because natural light is a natural enemy of museums, as if there was they saw no difference between themselves and the Art Institute. An art museum, of course, displays paintings and other objects given to fade under direct sunlight. The installations of a children's museum, on the other hand, must be specifically designed to be robust enough to resist, not sunlight, but the physical enthusiasms of its young visitors. Natural light is not a contaminant, and, in fact, is liberally deployed in the CCM's current Navy Pier home.

And if there is any doubt on this point, we give you, at the top of this post, the recently unveiled design by Pelli Clarke Pelli for a new National Children's Museum in Washington, DC. Its continuous glass walls embrace the sun, not cringe from it. The adjacent lawn is generous, open and unbroken, not squeezed between skylights that resemble upended jagged shards of glass. This is what you get when you actually design a childrens' museum for children, and not to placate the personal agenda of a prominent heiress and the political objectives of his primary patron, a mayor intent on gutting, once and for all, the A. Montgomery Ward protections for Grant Park

On a related note, Save Grant Park, which continues to work to block the museum's illegal land grab, reports that an initial hearing on a lawsuit to force the CCM to go "back to the drawing board" has been rescheduled to May 12th, while arguments for a second, asking for a court review of the process through which the CCM's proposal slid through the Plan Commission, Zoning Committee, and full City Council, are set to be heard this Thursday, May 7th. The group has gathered over 4,500 signatures on its on-line petition, and it's grassroots organizing efforts on behalf of Grant Park have earned it the IVI-IPO's 2009 Harold Washington Award, to be presented June 20th.

To the legal roadblocks to the museum's construction must now be added economic and political ones. It can only hoped that the tanking economy, coupled to a rising disgust with the CCM's hamfisted tactics and often fallacious PR will help dry up funding for this misguided project, which is made even more unnecessary now that the awarding of the state's last casino license to Des Plaines has dashed dreams for a Chicago casino at Navy Pier, securing CCM's position there far into the future.

Great Chicago Places, Burnham(x∞), Baker, Rybczynski, Adrian Smith, new Modern, historic Wabash and more - over 60 events on May calendar

Doing anything this coming Thursday, May 7th? If not, could we possibly entice you into squeezing into your schedule the nine architecture-related events taking place just on that one day? (The first Thursday of each month always seems to exert a bug-zapper power over schedulers.) There's Witold Rybczynski, not once, but twice, Archeworks final student presentation for the semester, SOM's George J. Efstathious and William Baker discussing the engineering of the Burj Dubai at CAF, a presentation of the city's new streetscaping plan for Congress Parkway for Friends of Downtown at the Chicago Cultural Center, and this months meeting of the Landmarks Commission.

There's over 60 items on the May calendar, not counting the over 100 tours being offered on the 16th in this year's edition, cut back to one day, of Great Chicago Places and Spaces. There's the folks at Harboe Architects talking about their stunning restoration of 1870's retail buildings on Wabash, for Landmarks Illinois at the Cultural Center, Adrian Smith at CAF, the history of streetcars at APA Chicago, the presentation of finalists up for this year's Structural Engineers Association of Illinois Excellence in Structural Engineering awards, Richard Avery and Jess TerMeer at the Graham discussing their award-winning reimagining of the unloveable strip mall, John Lupinos talking about the soon to open Nichols Bridgeway, again at CAF, and a special May 17th tour of the Michael Reese Hospital Campus, where the city in its mad dash towards a still unsecured 2016 Olympics seeks to smash to dust a number of splendid Bauhaus-inspired buildings by Reginald Isaacs with the previously little-known assistance of Walter Gropius.

For all you Burnham worshippers, CAF is hosting another lecture by Kristen Schafer on how Uncle Dan was the sun around which all lesser mortals merely orbited, plus, on another day, Carl Smith discussing planning before Burnham, and, co-sponsored with DePaul University, a two-day conference on Burnham, Chicago, and Beyond: Politics, Planning, and the Progressive Era City.

As always, we've only scratched the surface. Check out the full May calendar here.

Boom Lingers a few days longer

I'm told by the folks at CAF that if you still want to see the exhibition that I guest curated for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Booms Towns! Chicago Architects Design New Worlds, it may linger on a few days past its official Friday, May 1st closing date. You'll find it in the atrium of the Santa Fe Building, 224 S. Michigan. No guarantees, but if you're in the neighborhood, pop in and check it out, and let me know what you think by going to the visitors' book and leaving me a comment (and a good recipe for beef Stroganoff, if you have one: just slip it between the pages.) Read more about the exhibition from CAF here and from me here.

Cool Jobs at the MSI: Larry Novak talks Burj Dubai, Saturday, May 2nd

Because we're a little behind (surprise, surprise) in putting up the May calendar, we want to alert you to Science Works! Cool Jobs and Hot Careers, an all day career expo at the Museum of Science and Industry for young people ages 13 and up. You get to be "up-close and in person" with such scientists as a designer of mobile robots, a storm chasing meteorologist, a computer game designer, and more. On the architecture side, at 11:45 a.m., you can meet structural engineer Larry Novak, who has worked for SOM on such signature projects as the Burj Dubai, "the tallest free-standing building on Earth!" Complete info here. (Free with admission and ticketing, enter through the West Pavilion. Exhibits and shows are not included.)

Balmond's Solid Void adds hours this Sunday, Herda at Artropolis

The Graham Foundation has announced that its extraordinary exhibition, Cecil Balmond: Solid Void is adding hours to coincide with this weekend's Artropolis/Art Chicago at the Merchandise Mart. The exhibition will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., including this coming Sunday, May 3rd, usually a day the exhibition is closed. The Graham Foundation is at 4 West Burton Place.

In addition, Graham executive director Sarah Herda will join Paul Morris, Vice President of the MMPI Art Group; Rhona Hoffman, Rhona Hoffman Gallery; and Dominic Molon, Museum of Contemporary Art on a panel, Art and the New Economy, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. this Sunday, MAy 3rd, at the Merchandise Mart Conference Center. The panel will focus on "positive and effective ways to navigate challenging times [and] explore funding, collecting and the market."

Chicago Streetscene: The Snake Pit

Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple among National Trust's 11 Most Endangered

Frank Lloyd Wright's 1909 Unity Temple was named Tuesday to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 2009 list of the Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places. This may come as a shock to the thousands of visitors from all over the world who make the pilgrimage to Oak Park each year specifically to see one of the most important works of the self-proclaimed, and quite possibly actual "world's greatest architect."

Unity Temple replaced a previous church which had burned down when lightning hit its steeple. Call it an omen. Wright worked to subvert the top-heavy hierarchy that traditional Christian houses of worship took in both form and operation, and a create a new alternative that was both democratic and spiritual. The result is among America's greatest spaces, a perfect cube whose shallow surround of balconies, where worshippers face each other as well as the alter, creates an intense feeling of fellowship and sanctuary.
Unfortunately, as at Wright's Fallingwater, where the supports for the spectacular cantilever sagged over time and required an expensive replacement, innovation has its costs. At Unity Temple, this was Wright's use of not brick or stone, but concrete to create an entirely plastic sense of form. As the National Trust says in their press release:

Since Wright’s experimental concrete design did not call for expansion joints, there is extensive cracking. A coating of concrete applied in the early 1970s is no longer performing its vital, protective function and must be restored.

With its innovative and geometric design, the building has 16 separate flat roofs. Instead of using gutters, Wright designed an internal drainage system with downspouts hidden inside the four main interior columns of the temple. The system was undersized and essentially inaccessible, and to this day water continually overflows the drains and permeates the concrete roof slabs. Heavy rains in September 2008 caused a large chunk of plaster and concrete to fall from the sanctuary ceiling.

Many of Unity Temple’s art glass windows – there are more than 75 of them, in 10 different designs – are cracked, bowed and in need of professional conservation. In addition, much of the beautifully modulated wood banding throughout the building is in need of refinishing, plastered and painted surfaces require expensive restoration, and the original Magnesite floors – a signature feature – are cracked from heaving and require extensive repairs.

While Unity Temple has been well maintained, water infiltration has caused extensive damage to the concrete structure and interior finishes over the years. Now structurally compromised, the building urgently requires a multi-million-dollar rescue effort, a capital investment that Unity Temple’s community of dedicated supporters cannot afford.

The Unity Temple Restoration Foundation estimates that $4 to $6 million needs to be raised quickly just to stabilize the building and execute the most pressing repairs to the concrete. The full cost of restoration, including the interiors, is pegged at $25,000,000.

Unity Temple, 875 Lake Street, is open to the public. If you think you know what it's like from photographs, think again. It's an easy half-hour ride from downtown via the Green Line. Open Monday-Friday 10:30 - 4:30, Saturday and Sunday 1:00 - 4:00. Self-guided and pre-arranged tours. Admission: children 5 and under free; seniors and students with a valid ID, $6.00; adults, $8.00. The experience of one of architecture's greatest glories: priceless.

Will it Never End? One More Event: Doug Farr at Art Institute Tuesday Evening

SAIC's M.S. Historic Preservation program is hosting a lecture by Doug Farr, Founding Principal of Farr Associates, on Sustainable Urbanism in the Fullerton Auditorium, tonight, Tuesday, April 28th, at 6:00 p.m.

Who's the Crazy One?

On first read, the Los Angeles Times report of pianist Krystian Zimerman's angry tirade near the conclusion of his Disney Hall recital seems a another tale of a pampered, self-righteous artist, with Zimerman announcing this was his last U.S. concert due to this country's military policies. "Get your hands off my country," he is reported as saying, although accounts of U.S. military operations in both Poland, the country of his birth, and Switzerland, his adopted country, appear rather hard to come by.

Then you get to this sentence: "An earlier piano was destroyed by Homeland Security at JFK airport because officials were suspicious that its glue could be an explosive in disguise." Bureaucrats hacked apart a priceless Steinway belonging to one of the world's most accomplished - and well known - musicians because they thought the glue smelled funny. Zimerman is merely rude, perhaps only direct. We seem to be insane.

Towns Go Boom for Good May 1st - Becker Takes On Pullman Wednesday, April 29th

Ok, it's already come back from the dead once. Don't expect a second resurrection. If you're reckless enough to really want to see the exhibition that I guest curated for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Booms Towns! Chicago Architects Design New Worlds, Friday, May 1st is your last chance. Read more about it from CAF here and from me here.

And to add insult to injury, this Wednesday, April 29th, from 12:15 to 1:00 P.M., I will be delivering this week's lunchtime lecture, Before Burnham: Private Planning and the Town of Pullman. George Mortimer Pullman (and, no, that's not a lost Baldwin Brother in the picture to the right) was Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Citizen Kane rolled into the one, and the story of the self-named town he built in 1880's, the "perfect city" that mesmerized thousands of visitors to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, is one of the great, tragic epics of American history. Even as I write this, I'm working to cram the vital highlights into a fast 40 minutes.

My talk will take place in the John Buck lecture hall of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, with the exhibition in the adjacent atrium, both in the beautiful Santa Fe Building, 224 South Michigan.

The Expulsion: Chicago set to destroy Bauhaus Modernism at Michael Reese

The Olympics won't take place won't take place until 2016, and the winning bidder has yet to be announced, but to clear the way for an athletes' village, the City of Chicago is rushing to grind into dust one of the city's richest collections of Bauhaus-inspired architecture, even as a young scholar reveals new information about the role of legendary architect Walter Gropius in the design of the Michael Reese Hospital campus.

Any way you look at it—environmental, architectural, historical, or planning—the city’s push to obliterate Michael Reese is about as far from sound and sustainable as you can get. Read about it, in all its aspects - and see all the photographs - here.

Metal Flowers, Plastic Fronds, Cast Iron Tendrils

Walking to the Skokie Swift on a Sunny Morning

And miles to go before the Red,

And miles to go before the Red.

Traditionalist Zombies vs. Modernist Conspiracists

Being human, we enjoy being amused as much - probably more - than we do being enlightened. No matter how great the critic, they are more likely to be remembered less for their reasoned judgements than for moments of expertly written invective, and, as anyone unfortunate enough to actually read my stuff knows, nothing beats a grievous outrage of design or corruption to get the creative juices flowing.

Rarely, however, have I encountered anything as entertainingly nasty - and spot-on - as the normally sedate London Times architecture critic Hugh Pearman's unbound riff - in the alternate personality of guest writer "Squidgy" - on the controversy of Prince Charles', aka "the twattish heir to the British throne" attempts to subvert the public planning process to replace Richard Rogers' design for the Chelsea Barracks site in West London with an antediluvian classicist monstrosity by his court architect, Quinlan Terry.

It's a tale filled with greed, hypocrisy, conspiracy and complicity (Rogers' design is "Not. Very. Good. In fact, it is Shockingly Bad . . . a dog's breakfast worthy of Kanine Krunchies), with room for some well-aimed thwacks! at competing critics, as well.

In the tradition of Alice ("If you don't have anything good to say, come sit by me") Roosevelt, we give you Woke up on a Chelsea morning.

Gropius at Michael Reese, Earth Day at the Spertus, Ross Barney for CWA - a reminder, a cancellation, and still MORE events for April

No matter how late in month we get, there's still events being added to the April calendar, and we have a bunch more.

Gropius in Chicago
We'll start, however, with a reminder of Monday's 6:00 p.m., lecture at Hafele America's Chicago showroom, in which Grahm Balkany will present the findings into his research into what is described as architect Walter Gropius's "mostly forgotten role in Chicago. Mr. Balkany's project indicates that the Michael Reese Hospital campus has at least 8 buildings done with Gropius's heavy involvement. This is in addition to his master planning for the campus and the region, and urban design issues for the area of Michael Reese." More information here.

The city is fast tracking wiping every last piece of the Michael Reese Hospital complex off the face of the earth. beginning as early as June.

On Sunday, May 17th, Balkany will lead a free tour of the Michael Reese Hospital Campus, starting at 2:00 P.M. A donation of $10.00, to "help support the costs of continuing research", is, however, suggested. More info here.

One Cancellation: Winy Maas or MVRDV will not be making it to UIC this coming Wednesday.

Now on to the new stuff:
Modern Earth Spring 2009 - on Wednesday the 22nd, Earth Day, 5:30 - 8:30 pm., the Spertus Institute will be the site of this event sponsored by The Elements Group offering up d’oeuvres, organic wine and cocktails, Brazilian lounge music and green tours of the venue, as well as presentations on nature-oriented and sustainable design will include Krueck and Sexton Architects on the design of The Spertus Institute, and its relation to the natural environment and sustainability, and the IIT Student Architectural Studio Team and Krueck and Sexton Architects on the conceptual design of Project Nomad, a proposed mobile nature and environmental learning center inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House. Info here.

Cathy J. Maloney: Chicago Gardens: The Early History - the author will be discussing her new book, which covers a period of history from the first vegetable plots at Fort Dearborn to the innovative garden designs at the 1933 Century of Progress exhibition. Twice on Friday, April 24th, 12:15 at the Chicago Cultural Center, 6:30 p.m., Cyrano's Bistrot. Info here.

NPS Rustic: The Arts & Crafts Style in our National Parks - tea proceeds a lecture from former National Parks Service historian Robert Blyth. At Second Presbyterian Church, Saturday, April 25th, beginning at 1:00 p.m., Info here.

Chicago Women in Architecture's 27th Annual Spring Scholarship Brunch with Carol Ross Barney - the noted architect, whose Jewish Reconstruction Congregation in Evanston has just been named one of AIA Cote's Top Ten Green Projects, will be the featured speaker at this benefit event, Sunday, April 26th, 11:00 a.m - 2:00 p.m., at the Galleria Marchetti. Info here.

Park Ridge Artists Colony - also on Sunday the 26th, architect Sam Guard will lecture for the Kalo Foundation, at Park Ridge's First United Methodist Church, beginning at 1:00 p.m., Info here.

Okay, can we finally close the book on April now? There are still almost 30 events between now and the end of the month. Check them all out here. (To make sure we get everything in, publication of the May calendar will be delayed until June 15th.)