Saturday, 15 August 2009

Chicago Modern

I had it in my head that we flew out of Chicago on the evening of Tuesday the 14th, but I wasn't keen to be driving to Chicago on that very day, so I planned for us to spend the night, if not more, of Monday in Chicago. That would leave us most of Tuesday to look around. I had no doubt there was a ton to see, but didn't come up with specific ideas until we were about to head that direction. I found a bus tour of the city centre similar to the one we did in Barcelona the year we did the marathon there, where you could hop on and off at any of the stops.

However, when we got there the next day, it turned out that (a) it wasn't obvious where to get on the bus and (b) they wanted $30 each for the ride. When we grudgingly headed to buy tickets Bill discovered a much better deal, a 2-hour walking tour was only $15 each. I liked that idea much better: save money and burn a few of the 16 million calories I'd consumed in the past 10 days, not to mention have a better crack at taking pictures. Unfortunately, the only tour that was on offer that afternoon was about modern skyscrapers, but we went for it anyhow.

Our docent was a former teacher with a great lecturing style: "There will be a test! I will ask you this later: What are three hallmarks of the older style of architecture?"

[Old buildings usually have 3 tiers (base, shaft & cap); they are built of old materials (concrete, marble, etc); they have a lot of ornamentation added to the structure and -- for a bonus point -- they have 'mass' or are 'massive', ie taking up solid space, largely because of the materials used.]

Hallmarks of modern architecture include use of new materials (steel and glass); not much ornamentation at all; the quality of having 'volume' rather than 'mass'. The latter is a function of the street level generally being transparent, allowing you to see completely through the ground floor, and thereby giving the sense that the glass encapsulates volume rather than being a solid mass.

I wasn't taking any notes and I don't like modern buildings much, so full marks to her as a lecturer: she grabbed my attention and made me appreciate something new. I do love good teachers.

Post-modern buildings are built from modern materials, but echo the older style (which is why they are sometimes called Echo Deco) and sometimes 'give a nod' (she liked that phrase) to existing structures, imitating their lines. I learned a few of the rules architects have to follow when designing skyscrapers (particularly taking into account that Chicago is The Windy City) and that if one chooses the wrong cladding (ie, marble which doesn't handle extremes of temperature very well) for your skyscraper, bits fall off and billions have to be spent to re-clad the building in granite.

She referred often to Mies van der Rohe (never heard of him before) and
showed us loads of buildings, most of which I don't even now recall. Her, I will remember!

Federal Square:

Trump building (cool ice blue):

190 LaSalle (anonymous office building c 1985) - an Echo Deco

Reflecting building I can't find any reference to, but one of my favourites of the modern buildings because of the reflected shapes.

If you like architecture, I found this website that shows you around a lot of big cities around the world. If you want to look around Chicago, Google has a million websites -- over 15 million, actually.

This is the Chase Tower with its Chagall mosaic below. I remembered this building because it has a McDonalds (ie public toilet) and it made me rather ill to watch the workers on the scaffolds.

Mind, I've only heard of Chagall because of the Julia Roberts / Hugh Grant movie, Notting Hill...

This was another building that made my stomach ache, though Bill thought it was brilliant. They had an umpteen-story building to start with but decided they needed more space, so they built at least 19 (I counted) more on top. I don't usually mind heights, but there is nothing about this building I like, not the top part, not the empty bit in the middle, not being in the bottom part whilst the top is being constructed...No siree.

I sort of kept my distance just in case anything happened to go wrong whilst we were there...

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