Unbuilt Chicago: Right up My Alley by Barbara Stodola the Exhibition Title Is a Dead Give-Away
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THE TM 911 Franklin Street Weekly Newspaper Michigan City, IN 46360 Volume 20, Number 16 Thursday, April 29, 2004 Unbuilt Chicago: Right Up My Alley by Barbara Stodola The exhibition title is a dead give-away. “Unbuilt Chicago” is the stuff of dreams and fantasies, architects’ lofty visions of what might have been. More optimistic than “Lost Chicago.” More entertaining than previews of functional structures that actually go up. This exhib- it, currently at the Art Institute of Chicago, allows us to peek at the drawing boards where the architect’s creativity flourishes, unimpeded by the client’s pocketbook. Little wonder that the exhibition should contain drawings for war memorials and yacht clubs, Magic Mountain and Ziegfield Follies, soaring skyscrapers and buildings that slowly inch their way up. This is the world of dreamland. As long ago as 1892, an architect named Peter Weber proposed a 400-foot-tall structure for the Chicago World’s Fair that resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa, except that it didn’t lean. In its famous spiral there would have been an electric railway, winding around and upward and taking visitors to the top of the tower. Instead of this attraction, the Columbian Exposition introduced a giant ferris wheel to Chicagoans -- another way of getting to the top. Daniel Burnham, grand-daddy of Chicago architects and author of the 1909 Plan of Chicago, has two grandiose schemes in this exhib- it: a great, multi-storied, hulking Civic Center with an elliptical dome, and a massive pleasure palace for the Chicago Yacht Club, with Palladian windows overlooking the harbor. Chicago Continued on Page 2 This proposal for a Civic Center came from The Plan of Chicago drawn up by Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett, Jr., in 1909. Another Burnham design was this sprawling plan for the Chicago Yacht Club (1928-1930), at which time its membership was the world’s largest. Then came the Depression. THE Page 2 April 29, 2004 THE 911 Franklin Street • Michigan City, IN 46360 219/879-0088 • FAX 219/879-8070 In Case Of Emergency, Dial e-mail: News/Articles - [email protected] email: Classifieds - [email protected] http://www.bbpnet.com/ PRINTED WITH Published and Printed by TM Trademark of American Soybean Association THE BEACHER BUSINESS PRINTERS Delivered weekly, free of charge to Birch Tree Farms, Duneland Beach, Grand Beach, Hidden 911 Shores, Long Beach, Michiana Shores, Michiana MI and Shoreland Hills. The Beacher is also Subscription Rates delivered to public places in Michigan City, New Buffalo, LaPorte and Sheridan Beach. 1 year $28 6 months $16 3 months $10 1 month $5 Chicago Continued from Page 1 Worlds Fairs provided special opportunities for architect/dreamers. One of them was Henry Harringer, who proposed a Ziegfeld Fashion Threatre for the 1930 Century of Progress Exhibition, and also suggested that the Ziegfield Follies be brought from New York to Chicago -- as rivals, no doubt, to Sally Rand. Dream on. Competitions for war memorials usually drew scores of entries, including this dreamy design by Voorhees, Gmelin and Walker and Henry Harringer’s another by Alfonso Art Moderne theatre Iannelli. would have brought scantily-clad show- girls from the Ziegfeld Follies to Chicago’s Century of Progress Exhibition. (1930) The concept A Magic Mountain was drawn up by Alfonso Iannelli of the “Expanding for the Enchanted Island at the 1930 Fair. Iannelli, Skyscraper” who had earlier completed some projects in Indiana, was also collaborated with Bruce Goff on a design for a advanced in 1961 by Chicago War Memorial. Neither structure was ever Reginald built. Malcolmson, Another unbuilt memorial was an Eliel Saarinen whose drawing design commissioned by Kate Sturges Buckingham, shows a the lady who had Buckingham Fountain erected in highrise memory of her brother, Clarence. Kate was an admir- building with a central er of Alexander Hamilton, and she had a nine-foot stat- core to ue of him sculpted by John Angel, but the impressive support Saarinen setting was never completed. Kate died in cantilevered additions 1937, and the plan was shelved after World War II broke that could be out. constructed Besides bringing some beautiful drawings and over a period of architectural models out of the archives, this exhib- time, as it does a nice job of explaining the various factors that needed in cause buildings to not be built: wars, depressions, death the growing city. It was of clients, political pressures. Often, public struc- not intended tures are the result of competitions, where many to be built. entries are submitted but only one design is select- ed. THE April 29, 2004 Page 3 Open ‘til 6 p.m. Evenings www.littlehousefashions.comElegant Apparel for the Douglas Garofalo [email protected] Conscious Woman designed this Women’s Apparel modernist structure to house a visitors’ information center Girl’s Day for Chicago’s departments of cultural affairs and Out! tourism. Just Another Excuse to Shop! Grand Prizes! Hourly One of the most fascinating incidents in Chicago’s Friday, April 30th Drawings architectural history was the 1922 competition for the 10am-6pm Chicago Tribune building, which drew 250 entries from Sale Continues Saturday! all over the world, some of them cutting-edge designs, before settling on the neo-Gothic structure that still Girl’s Day Out 25%Off houses the newspaper offices today. 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Continued on Page 4 Mother’s Day Special Vera Bradley and Evelyn & Crabtree In 1999, Adrian Smith of 20% off thru May 8 Skidmore, Owings & 409409 AlexanderAlexander StreetStreet LaPorte,LaPorte, IN IN 326-8602 Merrill did this OnOn Hwy Hwy 35 35 - - 55 BlocksBlocks South ofof Lincolnway Lincolnway preliminary sketch of a TurnTurn RightRight on Alexander building that would have MondayMonday-Friday - Friday 9:3010 to to 6 7 Saturday Saturday 9:30 9:30 toto 55 been Chicago’s tallest. THE Page 4 April 29, 2004 Chicago Continued from Page 3 The exhibition brings to light elegant drawings by Louis Sullivan and Mies Van der Rohe; Holabird and Root’s concept of developing “air rights” over the Illinois Central tracks, way back in 1928; a propos- al for a 1992 Chicago World’s Fair, which never hap- pened; and two proposals for a “world’s tallest” build- ing, one by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, another by Cesar Pelli, who designed the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. Jewel-like models by Helmut Jahn and Bertrand Goldberg are also displayed. A proposed multiuse complex, designed by Helmut Jahn, would have brought excitement to Chicago’s Block 37. This drawing was done by Michael Budilovsky of Murphy/Jahn Architects. Among the models displayed in the exhibition is this trio of towers, designed by Bertrand Goldberg in 1986, for River City. MICHIGAN CITY CONNECTIONS The current exhibition of “Unbuilt Chicago,” now Although most of the pieces reach back into Chicago’s at the Art Institute of Chicago, contains drawings by history, retracing well-known territory, some pieces several architects who also worked in Michigan City. pulled out of the Art Institute’s archives came as a sur- The earliest of these was Alfonso Iannelli, an Italian- prise, even to well-informed persons like Blair Kamin, born sculptor who was a colleague of Long Beach Chicago Tribune architecture critic. Chief among architect John Lloyd Wright in the 1920s and ‘30s. these was Helmut Jahn’s “previously undisclosed Iannelli designed the altars at St. Mary’s Church, on 2003 plan for a glassy, highly transparent Harrods 10th Street, sculptural details for Barker Hall and Trinity department store on Block 37.” The deal fell apart last Episcopal Church, stained glass windows and other year, and the space remains vacant today, opposite details for private homes in Long Beach. Marshall Field’s on State street, still waiting for Iannelli’s visions are represented in the Art Institute dreams to come true. show by a drawing for “Magic Mountain” in the The exhibition, “Unbuilt Chicago,” is currently enchanted island at the 1930 World’s Fair, and a installed in the Kisho Kurokawa Gallery of Architecture, design for a war memorial, done in collaboration on the second floor of the Art Institute of Chicago. It with architect Bruce Goff. Iannelli also collaborated will remain on exhibit thru January 16, 2005.