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Terror and Wonder

Architecture in a Tumultuous Age

Terror and Wonder

Architecture in a Tumultuous Age

For more than twenty years now, Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune has explored how architecture captures our imagination and engages our deepest emotions. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Kamin treats his subjects not only as works of art but also as symbols of the cultural and political forces that inspire them. Terror and Wonder gathers the best of Kamin’s writings from the past decade along with new reflections on an era framed by the destruction of the World Trade Center and the opening of the world’s tallest skyscraper.

Assessing ordinary commercial structures as well as head-turning designs by some of the world’s leading architects, Kamin paints a sweeping but finely textured portrait of a tumultuous age torn between the conflicting mandates of architectural spectacle and sustainability. For Kamin, the story of our built environment over the past ten years is, in tangible ways, the story of the decade itself. Terror and Wonder considers how architecture has been central to the main events and crosscurrents in American life since 2001: the devastating and debilitating consequences of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina; the real estate boom and bust; the use of over-the-top cultural designs as engines of civic renewal; new challenges in saving old buildings; the unlikely rise of energy-saving, green architecture; and growing concern over our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

A prominent cast of players—including Santiago Calatrava, Frank Gehry, Helmut Jahn, Daniel Libeskind, Barack Obama, Renzo Piano, and Donald Trump—fills the pages of this eye-opening look at the astounding and extraordinary ways that architecture mirrors our values—and shapes our everyday lives.

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Architecture: Architecture--Criticism

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Reviews

"Kamin, the Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, has constructed an elegant and thought-provoking book out of 51 of his timely yet timeless columns. He begins not with the creation of structures but, rather, with their destruction: the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers and Katrina’s assault on New Orleans. In the wake of each catastrophe, Kamin examines reactions predictable and counterintuitive. There’s the ugly and dampening impact of clumsy security measures on architecture, travel, and public life, and the reckless building boom, which stoked the foreclosure epidemic and a plague of generic, bloated commercial and residential buildings, and left two massive skyscraper projects, the Spire and the Waterview Tower, in limbo in Chicago (“the first city of American architecture”). But he also writes of such buoyant successes as Santiago Calatrava’s winged addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum and Jeanne Gang’s “singular” Aqua Tower and celebrates the “blooming of green architecture.” Crisp and colorful, expert and witty, Kamin’s involving essays address the complexities of architecture and how the built world affects every aspect of life."

Donna Seaman | Booklist

"In the time Blair Kamin has served as the Chicago Tribune’s architectural critic, building has gone bananas. The Twin Towers fell and the Trump Tower rose, historic preservationists have had to fight tooth and nail for significant buildings, Dubai has gone mile high and the Chicago Spire became the Chicago Pit. His new book, Terror and Wonder, collects his writing from the Trib and elsewhere . . . about everything from McDonald’s to Mies."—TimeOut Chicago

Jonathan Messinger | TimeOut Chicago

“A highly informative and accessible survey of the architecture and planning of the past decade. . . .(Kamin’s) critique is one that extends beyond the physical facades he analyzes into the broader context of socio-economic activity. Poignant and timely.”

Jeremy Stephen Shedd | The Architect’s Newspaper

“Blair Kamin, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, thoughtfully and provocatively defines the emotional and cultural dimensions of architecture. He is one of the nation’s leading voices for design that uplifts and enhances life as well as the environment. His new book, Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age, assembles some of his best writing from the past ten years.”

Guy Horton | Huffington Post

“Terror and Wonder: Architecture in a Tumultuous Age, a collection of [Kamin’s] essays and reviews from 2001 to 2010, takes on subjects as fraught as the rebuilding effort at Ground Zero and the architecture of public housing. But it does so in a style that is approachable, clear-eyed and—perhaps above all—eminently reasonable. If the age was tumultuous, in other words, Kamin’s prose never is.”

Christopher Hawthorne | Urban Design Review

"[Kamin] spotlights architecture’s central role in the decade’s main events and trends. . . . [He] is, in the end, our most deeply-humane critic.”

Guy Horton | Architectural Record

“When it comes to architecture criticism in the United States, no one does it better than Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune. A 1999 winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Kamin has written eloquently, intelligently and passionately about everything from the Chicago lakefront to the National September 11 Memorial in Manhattan. . . . [Terror and Wonder] is an excellent overview of Kamin’s recent work, and of the state of architecture worldwide.”

Steven Litt | Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Prescient. . . . colourful. . . . Kamin’s criticism is sharp and readable, more so because he places ordinary people before architects, planners or developers in his appraisal of the changes he has witnessed to the urban environment over the last 10 years.”

Rakesh Ramchurn | The Architects ’ Journal

"[The book’s] organisational format, combined with Kamin’s addition of a postscript for most columns, provides a sense of depth and continuity to what might otherwise appear to be a collection of brief snapshots. . . . Kamin’s text enacts its own form of historical contextualization and it is one with considerable explanatory power."

Joel McKim | Oxford Art Journal

“Chicago is lucky to have Kamin, whose architectural criticism in that city’s Tribune continues the spirited tradition of Allan Temko and Ada Louise Huxtable. This collection from the past decade shows a deft eye for the latest Windy City tower but also the larger weave of culture and design.”

John King | San Francisco Chronicle

“Kamin writes with insight, sensitivity, and balance. His collection is a vivid, memorable, wide-angled panorama of the decade. It is a refresher we need right now.”

Stanley Stark | Oculus

“Kamin is a keen, trenchant observer of the contemporary urban scene, and his engaging criticism enjoys a welcome second life in this anthology…Recommended.”

R.T. Clement | Choice

“An excellent collection of articles."

Design Observer

“Best books of 2010”

Kai Ryssdal | Marketplace

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

1 The Urban Drama
DISASTER
RAISING UP A FALLEN SKY
The Best Way to Fill the Chilling Void in the Lower Manhattan Skyline Is with a Great New Urban Center, Not a Reproduction of the Destroyed Twin Towers
DON’T ABANDON NEW ORLEANS
The Big Easy, an American Masterpiece, Deserves to Be Saved; Its Rebuilding Should Stress Substance over Show

SECURITY
LAND OF THE SORT OF FREE
In a Nervous City, Places like the Federal Plaza Run Scared, While the Daley Plaza Hangs Tough
FORT WASHINGTON
From the Heartland to the Capital, Federal Buildings Put on the Armor of a Nation under Siege
HUBS OF FRUSTRATION
Airports—A Symbol of Our Freedom of Movement—Have Become Dehumanizing

THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF REBUILDING
A BRILLIANT TIGHTROPE WALK AT GROUND ZERO
One Plan for WTC Rises above the Rest
TOWER OF BANAL
Latest Freedom Tower Design Erases Original Vision of Remembrance and Renewal

RECLAIMING THE PUBLIC REALM
A PEOPLE’S PARK FOR THE FUTURE
Why Millennium Park Has Instantly—and Interactively—Established Itself as Chicago’s New Town Square
THE MILLENNIUM PARK EFFECT
It Has Emerged as a Sparkling Example of How Big Cities Can Get Big Things Done

2 The Building Boom
WRETCHED EXCESS
MONUMENTS TO MEDIOCRITY
The Demands of Business Overwhelm the Art of Architecture in a Surge of High-Rise Residential Construction
ONCE GRAND, NOW BLAND
Boom in Branch Banks Is Shortchanging the Character of Neighborhoods
A MICKEY D’S ON STEROIDS
When Supersize Isn’t Necessarily Better
A GALLERY OF ROGUES
For Every Gem Produced by the Long-Running Building Boom, There Are Even More Clunkers

GEMS AMID THE ROUGH
A SPARKLING NEW HIGH-RISE, THE CONTEMPORAINE, HERALDS THE REVIVAL OF MODERNISM
LIGHTER-THAN-AIR SERTA HEADQUARTERS ELEVATES THE ORDINARY
WAVES OF CREATIVITY
The Aqua Tower, by Rising Star Jeanne Gang, Is One of Chicago’s Boldest and Best New Skyscrapers

DOES SUPERTALL MEAN SUPERB?
THE DONALD’S DUD
Trump’s Skyscraper, Shortened by the Post-9/11 Fear of Heights, Reaches Only for Mediocrity
SCALING AESTHETIC HEIGHTS
Skyscraper Adapts to Our World in a Stunning New Way
LET’S TWIST AGAIN
Third Time’s the Charm for Lakefront Tower—or Is It?
HOW TO BUILD TODAY’S SUPERTALLS
Elegance, Not Machismo, Is behind Chicago’s Unprecedented Reach for the Sky
A SKYSCRAPER OF MANY FACES
In Trump’s Context-Driven Chicago Skyscraper, Beauty Is in the Eye—and the Vantage Point—of the Beholder
THE NEW BURJ DUBAI, THE WORLD’S TALLEST BUILDING, SHOWS THAT NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE EXCESS

3 The Age of Icons
CATHEDRALS OF CULTURE
WINGED VICTORY
Santiago Calatrava Marries Sculpture and Structure, and Molds a New Identity for the Milwaukee Art Museum
A MUSICAL ARK FOR LOS ANGELES
Frank Gehry’s Spectacular Disney Hall Draws Energy from the City’s Chaos and Steers It toward a New Vision of Community
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGHS AND LOWS
Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum Addition Is a Striking Urban Presence but Doesn’t Soar as a Showcase
BLADES OF GLASS
The New Spertus Institute and Its Gemlike Wall Form a Welcome Counterpoint to Chicago’s Michigan Avenue Historic District

FROM THE SPECTACULAR TO THE SUBTLE
A BRIGHTER IDEA
Steven Holl’s Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City Redefines the Museum Addition
CHICAGO’S TEMPLE OF LIGHT
Much More than a Container for Art, Renzo Piano’s Refined Modern Wing Opens to Nature and the City
A SIDEWALK THROUGH THE SKY
With Quiet Nautical Flourish, the Nichols Bridgeway Connects the Modern Wing of the Art Institute to Millennium Park

BIG STARS ON CAMPUS
BOLD NEW LOOK ON CAMPUS
Can Sexy, Signature Buildings Successfully Fuse Form and Function?
TRIUMPHANT HOMECOMING
Helmut Jahn Designs an Illinois Institute of Technology Dorm that Looks Elegantly at Home
THOM MAYNE’S STUDENT RECREATION CENTER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI IS THE LATEST PIECE OF AN EXEMPLARY PUZZLE

4 The Changing Faces of Preservation and Conservation
NEW CHALLENGES FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
THE DANGER OF BECOMING SKIN-DEEP
Chicago Historic Buildings Become Shells as New Rules of Preservation Are Letting City’s History Slip Away
HEALING PROCESS
It’s Unclear Whether Cook County Hospital Can or Should Be Saved, but There Hasn’t Been a Full Airing of the Question
WHY LOSING SOLDIER FIELD’S LANDMARK STATUS MATTERS
Uncle Sam Draws a Line, Saving Avant-Garde Architecture from Its Worst Excesses
LOVE IT? HATE IT? OR BOTH?
An Architecture Critic Revisits the Building He Despised as a Student and Has a Revelation
THIS MIES BUILDING AT IIT CAN GO
Squat Brick Structure Isn’t the Architect’s Best Work, and the Metra Expansion Merits Its Razing
HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND GREEN ARCHITECTURE
Friends or Foes?

THE BLOOMING OF GREEN ARCHITECTURE
CHICAGO, MY KIND OF GREEN
The Windy City Presents a Snapshot of the Sustainability Movement’s Strengths and Shortcomings
GOING “NET ZERO” TO MAKE A GREEN STATEMENT
First-of-Its-Kind Home in Chicago Will Produce as Much Energy as It Uses
TEMPLE OF GREEN
In the Grand Rapids Art Museum, a Measured Approach to Design Reveals that Elegance and Environmentalism Are Not Incompatible

5 A New Era and New Challenges
REIMAGINING REGIONS AND HOUSING
GOING FORWARD
Planning for Chicago’s Future Requires Burnham-Style Vision—and a Big Pair of Green-Tinted Glasses
SHORTSIGHTED POLEMICS
The Ideological Catfights over Housing Threaten to Marginalize All of Architecture
CHA POLISHES ITS ROUGH EDGES
Architect Dresses up the Dearborn Homes, Georgian Style, and Upgrades Living Spaces Inside
BRICK BY BRICK
Born as a Horse Stable, the Brick Weave House Provides the Perfect Home for a Pair of Urbanite Gearheads

THE BLESSINGS—AND BURDENS—OF INFRASTRUCTURE
A GRANDER CANYON
The Rebuilt Wacker Drive Has Emerged Not Only Fixed, but Finer
CHICAGO’S SECOND WATERFRONT
A New Stretch of River Walk Furthers the Dream of Turning a Once-Harsh Industrial Zone into a Prime Public Space
NEW RANDOLPH STATION WORKS WITHIN ITS LIMITS
Renovated Station a Bright Spot in Daily Commute
THE WAY WE MOVE—AND LIVE
America’s Infrastructure Crisis Arrives on Chicago’s Doorstep

HIGH HOPES, HIGH BUILDINGS, AND SOBERING REALITIES
GOOD-BYE, ICONS; HELLO, INFRASTRUCTURE
Obama Inaugurates a New Era of Architecture
BACK TO BASICS
President Obama’s Infrastructure Plan Won’t Match the Great New Deal Public Works Projects, but It Moves America in the Right Direction

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
INDEX