Chicago Architecture Sacred and Profane at Open House Chicago

click images for larger view (highly recommended)

If you haven't caught out on our admonition Open House Chicago 2012 is one of great events of the year, I've included this gallery to convince you, starting with the image above, from the delirious Oriental Theater.  There's one more day, Sunday, October 14, to take in your own selection of the 150+ participating sites from Rodgers Park to South Shore and all points in between with a bunch sites that were closed Saturday opening up on Sunday.

Check it all out at Open House Chicago 2012.

MDA City Apartments

from the rooftop terrace of MDA, at the top of 203 N. Wabash, soon to be a Virgin International Hotel

Illinois Center from the MDA rooftop terrace

Essanay Studios

Bridgeview Bank (former Uptown National Bank)

Bridgeview Bank

Agudas Achim Synagogue

Agudas Achim Synagogue

Frank Fisher Apartments

organ loft, former Scottish Rite Cathedral, now Harvest Bible Chapel

a bird

a minkey, and a few more Oriental images

And here's a few more shots, from day two:

Aragon Ballroom

Civic Orchestra Brass Quintet at the top of the Original Sears Tower

Power House High

Riviera Theatre

Working this Weekend?: Monday deadline for CAC Future Prentice competition entries

click images for larger view

If you were going to do it, my bet is that you wouldn't have forgotten, but just in case, noon Monday, October 15th is the deadline for submissions to the Chicago Architectural Club's Future Prentice competition.

This single-stage international design ideas competition is intended to act as a platform for public debate about the future of one of Chicago’s most architecturally significant Modern buildings, Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital.  FUTURE PRENTICE is open to anyone with a vision of what the former Prentice Women’s Hospital could become.  Students, architects, landscape architects, planners, designers, artists and concerned citizens alike are encouraged to enter the competition. 

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks graciously keeps putting off consideration of Bertrand Goldberg's should-be landmark to allow the November unveiling of the competition winners, plus a promised exhibition of all of the ideas generated for reusing the structure.  (Or maybe it's just to give Northwestern additional time to pour more millions into its increasingly dishonest and misleading PR campaign to circumvent landmarks consideration and create still  another vacant lot on its campus.)

CAC has assembled an all-star competition jury:

•  Zoe Ryan, John H. Bryan Chair and Curator of Architecture and Design, The Art Institute of Chicago
•  Carlos Martinez, AIA, Principal and Firmwide Design Leader at Gensler 
•  John Ronan, AIA, Founding Principal, John Ronan Architects 
•  Martin Felsen, AIA, Co-founding Principal, UrbanLab 
•  Kevin Harrington,, Architectural historian and Professor 
•  Zurich Esposito, Executive Vice President at AIA Chicago 
•  William F. Baker, PE, SE, FASCE, FIStructE; Structural Engineering Partner for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP
•  Bonnie MacDonald, President at Landmarks Illinois.

But as Northwestern will tell you, what do they know?

The competition is open  to everyone - architect or not, professional or not  - as long as you've got what you think is a good idea, and the $90.00  ($50.00 for students) registration fee.  First prize is $3,000; second $1,500, third $750.00.

So if inspiration has just struck, put on the coffee, check out the rules and download the brief, here.

Open House Chicago, complete with custom scores, opens up 150+ Chicago marvels Saturday and Sunday

click images for larger view

I make no secret of it:  I think Open House Chicago is as absolutely great event.  If you don't know about it already, let the experts describe it:

"It's a free event for all Chicagoans." says President Lynn Osmond,  "Chicago Architecture Foundation's mission is to help inspire people to discover why design matters, and what better way than by opening up over 150 sites  for Chicagoans to go out and explore.  Last year we had over 85,000 people visit our sites, and it was really exciting to see how they discovered the sites of Chicago and our neighborhoods.  86% of those people were actually residents of the city of Chicago.  But we also had visitors that we welcomed from all around the world and from all 50 states."

original Sears Tower

"Last year, we had visitors from more than 54 countries," adds Bastiaan Bouma, Open House Chicago's Managing Director.   We're thrilled with the participation we received last year .  We're nearly twice the size this year.  We're in 25 neighborhoods, as opposed to 13 last year . We're in 13 community areas.  We're in 21 of the city's 50 wards . . . from Rogers Park to West Ridge to South Shore to Garfield Park , Little Village , Pilsen,  - it's a tremendous opportunity for people to rediscover the city of Chicago from a brand new perspective."

"Someone once said that Chicago is a city of 2.8 million architecture critics, and this is your weekend to take advantage of that instinct.  Free, behind the scenes, no tickets, no reservations.  Develop your own itinerary.  We do think that the bicycle is the ultimate Open House Chicago accessory.  The record last year was something over 50 visits by one individual , so we're looking forward to seeing somebody beat that record this year and I'll bet he or she is going to be on a bicycle."

St. Philip Neri Church

Most of the sites are open 9 to 5 both Saturday and Sunday, but there are exceptions - Churches, as is to be expected, are open later on Sunday - so double-check the sites you want to see.

Bridgeview Bank - photograph: David Suarez

Also very neat, four composers from Access Contemporary Music have written musical compositions that will be composed at the sites they will be created for:  Jude Matthews for the Bridgeview Bank (12:00 to 3:00 p.m. Saturday), Katherine Young for the Nickerson Mansion (1:00 to 4:00 Saturday); Eric Malmquist for the Poetry Foundation (12:00 to 3:00 Saturday), and Timothy Corpus for the Arts Club (12:00 to 3:00, Sunday).  All events free.

Among the new locations are places that almost never open to the public, such as the observation deck atop the Kemper Building, open for the first time in 40 years and offering a spectacular 360 degrees panorama of Chicago from 500+ feet up.  In the case of historic Agudas Achim North Shore Congregation, it's a space that's been closed even to its congregation since 2008.

Poetry Foundation, John Ronan Architects

Contemporary architecture?  You've got  VOAs new Wabash Tower vertical dorm for Roosevelt University, you can see Jeanne Gang's Kam Liu Building in Chinatown and Columbia College Media Production Center , Helmut Jahn's State Street Village at IIT, Farr Associates, Christy Webber Landscapes, Nagle Hartray's Ogden  International School, Williams and Tsien's Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at U of C, Krueck and Sexton's Spertus Institute, Rem Koolhaas's Campus Center at IIT, and John Ronan's Poetry Foundation and South Shore International College Prep, to name just a few.

Theaters:  Check out Rapp and Rapp's hallucinogenic  Oriental Theater, the lovingly restored Apollo 2000 (the former Marshall Square Theater), Uptown's Riviera (Sunday only), and Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium.

The Green Mill

I've included here photos of many of the most spectacular interiors, but don't forget the equally spectacular smaller spaces, from the offices of many of the Chicago's leading architects, to the former Sunset Cafe in Bronzeville, Andrew Rebori's Frank Fisher Apartments, the Downtown Islamic Center, the former Swift Mansion, Jayuya Barbership , Shedd Park Field House, Thalia Hall, the Green Mill, the Berghoff, and even the Trib Tower aerie (a/k/a the Colonel's office) that was the site for Randy Michaels' notorious poker games.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  Right now, the weekend looks warm and rainy.  What could be more perfect weather to check out the great interiors of Chicago.?  Take a few minutes to explore, and you'll discover wonders you may never have known existed.

Start here.

The Reveal: Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago

click images for larger view (highly recommended)

The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts has its official opening this weekend with a Launch Logan Festival, Friday through Sunday, October 12-14, and an October 12th program Beware the Stairs are Always Moving: a conversation with Architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, 6:00 p.m. in the Logan Center's Performance Hall.  Read our profile of the building and its architects here.

 “I think in life it's generally true,” said architect Tod Williams, “everything's pushing to the more broadly based and generic, kind of universal answers.  I think that's the trend of the moment, and I think there's certain places, certain institutions, and people that go against that.  We go against that.”

He was responding to my question about architecture in the era of the supply chain, where it's all about maximizing efficiency through standardization and scale . . .

We had the opportunity to tour the this stunning new building, the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts with its architects, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien last Friday, and the result is this photo-essay.   Williams and Tsien talk to me about about how the building came about, how it works, and the challenges they faced in getting it done.  Images, in abundance.

Read:  The Reveal: Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago

Moving Marina City to North Michigan for Open House Chicago 2012

click images for larger view

For competent photographers it would just be a bad shot.  For me, it's fun with reflections.

The Chicago Architecture Foundation held a press conference this morning to herald this weekend's Open House 2012, the amazing event that opens up over 150 Chicago buildings and places many not usually accessible,  to the public.

One spectacular addition this year is the top floor of Shaw, Metz's 1962 United of America  - now Kemper - Building, at State and Wacker, which was the location for CAF's Wednesday press event.  Its Club on 39, long forgotten, was once one of Chicago's "Lofty View" fine dining options  For the first time in decades, the top floor has been been re-opened for Open House Chicago.  Some of the windows may bit a bit clouded, but the views from the 500+-foot-high structure remain spectacular.

Check out all the great locations at  Open House Chicago 2012.

Rafael Viñoly talks Wright, new hospital, at the Logan Center for the Arts

click images for larger view

Architect Rafael Viñoly was at the University of Chicago last night, speaking in the Performance Hall of the new Tod Williams/Billie Tsien Reva and David Logan Center for Arts, about to open with its own Logan Launch Festival this Friday through Saturday.  (Normally, I'd link to the architect's website, but the Rafael Viñoly Architects url is currently popping up a malware alert, so here's a link to his Wikipedia entry.)

Viñoly gave a preview of the thinking behind the newly christened University of Chicago Center for Care and Discovery, a $700 million, 10-story, 1.2 million square foot facility scheduled to open early next year.  The design is based on a 31'6" x 31'6" x 18' basic module extruded out to a building that's 570 feet long, 180 feet wide, and 198 feet high.  The actual inpatient rooms are on the top three floors, just above an inset sky lobby, providing both patients and visitors views out over the rooftops of the University and, to the north, the complete Chicago skyline.

I hope to be writing a lot more about this structure as we near the opening.  (Right now I'm working on finishing up my interview/tour with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of the Logan Center.) For the moment, we'll just give you a little bit of Viñoly talking about Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House . . .

. . . which was brilliantly reflected in Viñoly's own design for the Booth School of Business, just across the street . . .

 Says Viñoly . . .

Architecture is the art of the specific. There’s nothing open-ended or undetermined in architecture. It’s not, as some people used to say in the early 70’s, an autonomous discipline. There couldn’t be anything less autonomous than architecture. There’s money involved, there’s uses involved, there’s science, technology, a number of things which are more exactly parallel to the kinds of instruments and use of information than to the mastery of the craft as it happens in traditional visual art.

I think that what is remarkable in Wright’s work is the fact that he wasn’t doing the Prairie Style simply as a stylistic approach. He was pursuing a research on a proportional system and overall a compositional system that wasn’t even actually invented up until that point. If you put that in context with what was happening in Europe, it’s also a completely different approach than what modernism was based on, which was in appropriating images and ideas from painting and from the traditional arts and try to create a reality, a new philosophy.

What the Robie House does is fundamentally investigate the one thing I think unifies all architecture, which is the phenomenally subtle play of proportions and scale.

Viñoly's lecture was sponsored by Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, and was an early event this this year's edition of the incredible Chicago Ideas Week.

The World of Wiel Arets lands at IIT

click images for larger view

Modesty is often not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of architects, but the College of Architecture at IIT may be about to test it out.

It was a clear theme in the inaugural lecture by IIT's new Dean of the College of Architecture Wiel Arets last Wednesday, starting with the introduction by architect John Ronan.

"When Wiel Arets came to Chicago to interview for the Dean position at IIT", said Ronan, "we took him out to dinner the night before his interview. The very first thing he said to us was, 'You have to understand, I’m not a teacher, I’m a student.' Four hours later, as we were the last party to leave the restaurant, and they were putting chairs on the tables, we knew we had begun an interesting dialogue that would have profound implications for IIT in Chicago." 

"The school is you," Arets told the assembled students. "You are my colleagues."

Arets, 57, who was named to his IIT post this past August, was previously Dean of Rotterdam's Berlage Institute from 1995 to 2002.  In his Wednesday talk, to an overflow crowd that spilled into Crown Hall's lower core, he gave an overview of the work of his firm Wiel Arets Architects that  stressed his optimistic view of the future, including the possibilities of the PAL-V flying car.

When someone was designing a flying car five years ago it was a young student of the University of Delft.  He saw that we were able to fly with a car we can develop and even James Bond is jealous. I think at this moment one of fifty of these cars are being produced in Holland and the only problem we have is that we are not allowed to fly with them, because the rules are not allowing us to do so. I think that’s something we have to be aware of as architects. We have to be aware as architects that rules sometimes allows not to do what we want to do.

Branson is promising the world that L.A. and London will be less than two hours apart. This is the map of the world with borders. This is the map of the world without borders. That’s a world I would like to see.

This subway map positioned on a map of the world is telling us that when we take the plane or subway that we think we go from place to place. We go maybe from Chicago to New York, or from Chicago to L.A., but are we going really there? The idea that we are moving from one place to another in a physical world where we have no clue what we are doing . . . I push a button and things happen. I think that’s something I’m interested in, the fact that the world will become, and is probably already one city.

The world is one city with neighborhoods as this map shows you. When this could happen and will happen, then the cities will be not only the center point; the cities will be connected to each other, like Being, Seoul and Tokyo in Asia.  The area the we are in now will be one of the bigger neighborhoods, as well. When this is happening , then the world will shrink for us, since we can move from one place to another in less than two hours.

On the other hand, I believe that diversity and the local conditions are maybe even more important than ever.

That's a rather tall order, especially since the wide range of the world that we are compressing to simultaneity is not just geographic, but social and economic.  More people are flying and traveling than ever before, yet that group represents but a small, highly privileged subset of humanity.   The central contradiction is reflected in Arets' own striking body of work, which ranges from everything from Living Madrid, a social housing project . . .

photograph courtesy Wiel Arets Architects

, , , to the Utrecht University Library . .

photograph courtesy Wiel Arets Architects

 . . . to Hedge House, for a man with seven cars and a special room for his chickens . . .

photograph courtesy Wiel Arets Architects

What it will all mean for IIT I really don't know.   At times, it seems both too much and too little.  The mind reels, and I follow the advice of Arets as he closed Wednesday's talk . . .

"I think, John, we should have a drink."

Rescheduled: Saturday's Archi-Salon at Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects

We received a note from Art Institute Assistant Curator Karen Kice that, due to scheduling conflicts, the "Archi-Salon" led by Clare Lyster this Saturday inside the space of the Art Institute's new exhibition Building: Inside Studio Gang Architects, has been rescheduled to February 2, 2013.

The Ages of 830 South Michigan

courtesy Chuckman's Collection - click images for larger view

In December of 1876, thirteen women got together to establish Chicago's first Young Women's Christian Association. By the time of 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the YWCA had grown so quickly that they built an eight story structure at 833 South Michigan. Designed by John Mills van Osdel II, son of Chicago's first architect, it towered over neighboring homes, stores and offices.

The graceful red brick facade, with Italianate detail, was topped off with two floors of elegant bay windows, while an open air loggia at the second floor provided cooling breezes and handsome views of the Chicago lakefront. The new facility would be a safe haven for young women coming to the big city for study or work.

Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-0003451. Courtesy of Chicago History Museum

It was here that a young Ruth Crawford Seeger stayed when she came to Chicago in 1921 for her musical education, paying $9.50 a week room and board, plus another $1.25 for piano rental. In 1912 another resident, Margaret Anderson would remember the hotel as a place of "bad food, uncomfortable beds, and sap-green walls." In 1914, Anderson would go on to found The Little Review, which would publish the works of Eliot, Pound and Joyce. Ruth Crawford Seeger - Pete's step mom - would in her too brief life become a modernist American composer and musicologist.

courtesy, Chuckman's Collection

In 1929, the building became the 830 South Michigan Hotel. In the 1970's, the hotel was purchased by Johnson Publishing Company and converted into offices.

By 2005, 830 was among several parcels acquired by a developer for a $200 million, 376-unit condo tower. Designed by Pappageorge/Haymes, the Park Michigan, 80 stories and 855 feet high, would be built behind 830 South Michigan, which would serve as the entrance to the new tower. 830's facade and key architectural features would be restored.

Alas, the Park Michigan didn't even have to wait for the financial collapse of 2008 to die. In March of that year, the project's lender filed for foreclosure on the site, and in November, 830 South was sold to a venture associated with Matthew Pritzker for $17.6 million. After the crash, prospects evaporated.

Left to rot for decades, the now blue-faced building was a boarded-up museum of decay: collapsed walls, water damage, rotting boards and piles of debris. It had become a threat not only to itself, but to its neighbors, with taggers breaking into the structure to spray graffiti on adjacent buildings. In an article in the Columbia Chronicle, Lisa DiChiera of Landmarks Illinois reported that in addition to the ravages of neglect, 830 South also suffered from problems that went all the way back to the original construction, including a too-shallow foundation and a facade that was not properly connected to the structure.

With even preservationists sadly admitting defeat, the new owners filed for a demolition permit, which was granted after the city declared the building dangerous in November of 2009. Early in 2010, 830 was wrecked and the site cleared. Urban Remains went through the building and collected artifacts, including key fobs for the hotel, blocks of foliate terra cotta from the base of the facade's pilasters, and cast iron elevator grill cartouches.

 So now we come to what 830 is today: nothing. An empty lot. A raw abscess in the landmark Michigan Avenue street wall. It's testimony to how fragile Chicago's protection of its landmarks can be. The only positive legacy of 830's sad tale is the void it's left behind, an accusatory scar demanding we not waste this last opportunity along the civic showcase that is Michigan Avenue with anything less than the best.

Farnsworth Alfresco with Schulze, Windhorst and Jacobs; Williams and Tsien on (and at) their new Logan Center for the Arts, John Van Bergen month - more for October

click images for larger view

Chicago has so many great architectural tours, we don't even try to list them in our October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events, but there's an exceptional tour this Saturday for which, at this writing, there's still tickets available.  Farnsworth House and Docomomo Chicago Midwest is offering up Farnsworth House Alfresco this Saturday, October 6th.

And, yes, there is a picnic lunch included, but the real draw is the participation of the Franz Schulze and Edward Windhorst, co-authors of the highly anticipated New and Revised Edition of Mies van der Rohe, A Critical Biography, due out next month; plus Tom Jacobs of Krueck+Sexton, the project architect for recent restoration work on the historic home.  The $100 ticket price also includes bus transportation to and from CAF downtown, with a drive yourself ticketing also available. The actual event runs from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m, with bus pickup at CAF at 10:30 a.m., returning at 4:30 p.m.

Read our own piece recounting the history of Mies's masterwork, and the battle to save it, Glass House Struck by Gavel.

As a run-up to this years Open House Chicago, we've also added a Friday, October 12th lecture, Beware the Stairs Are Always Moving: a conversation with architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, 6:00 p.m. in the Performance Hall of the new Williams/Tsien designed Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on the University of Chicago campus.  It's part of Logan Launch Fest, a three day festival celebrating the building's official opening, over 40 free events, from music, to film, to poetry, theater and more, showcasing the dizzying array of performance spaces incorporated in the building.

We should also mentioned a new exhibition at the Highland Park, which has declared October John van Bergen Month.  Events include an exhibition of photographs and artifacts of the work of the famed Prairie School architect at the Highland Park Historical Society, with a panel discussion on Prairie Architecture at the Highland Park Public Library on October 14th, and a house walk October 21st.

Among the over a dozen items this week, new IIT Dean of Architecture Wiel Arets lectures at Crown Hall Wednesday at 6:00 p.m., Related Companies discuss the resuscitation of the stalled Waterview Tower as 111 West Wacker, Thursday lunchtime for Friends of Downtown at the Cultural Center, the same day Commission of Chicago Landmarks fails to discuss the subject of Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital still again, Seaside Award-winning architect Scott Merrill lectures at the Driehaus Museum, and Chris Ware talks about and signs copies of his new book, Building Stories, at Unity Temple.  And if you can't make it to Farnsworth on Saturday, you can head over to the Art Institute, where Clare Lyster will be leading an "Archi-Salon" on the topic architecture’s external influences, such as transportation networks, within the exhibition space of the spectacular new show, Building:  Inside Studio Gang Architects.

Check out all seventy-plus great items on the October Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.