Chicago Architecture
Histories, Revisions, Alternatives
9780226870397
Chicago Architecture
Histories, Revisions, Alternatives
When you think of modern architecture, you think of Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper, the cradle of twentieth-century American design, and the home of enduring works by such iconic figures as Louis Sullivan, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Idealized through tourism and celebrated in the groves of academe, the city’s majestic skyline and landmark buildings remain a living testament to the modern movement.
In Chicago Architecture, Charles Waldheim and Katerina Ruedi Ray revise and offer alternatives to the archetypal story of modern architecture in Chicago. They and an esteemed group of contributors assert that the mythic status of Chicago architecture has distorted our understanding of the historical circumstances in which it was realized. This searching volume illuminates the importance of photographs, books, magazines, and other media in the cultivation of an international audience for Chicago architecture; it explores the pivotal role of real estate developers, finance and insurance sectors, and speculative capital markets in the development of the city itself; and, perhaps most notably, it examines a wide variety of overlooked architectural works and their creators—individuals who did not fit into the dominant modernist narrative.
Offering new insights on Chicago public housing and O’Hare International Airport, on the Columbian Exposition and Marina City, on the city’s grid system and the place of women architects in the story of Chicago modernism, and on the subjective experience of living inside Chicago’s most well-known buildings, Chicago Architecture is a work of enormous scope and vision—a book as heady and towering as the skyline it considers.
In Chicago Architecture, Charles Waldheim and Katerina Ruedi Ray revise and offer alternatives to the archetypal story of modern architecture in Chicago. They and an esteemed group of contributors assert that the mythic status of Chicago architecture has distorted our understanding of the historical circumstances in which it was realized. This searching volume illuminates the importance of photographs, books, magazines, and other media in the cultivation of an international audience for Chicago architecture; it explores the pivotal role of real estate developers, finance and insurance sectors, and speculative capital markets in the development of the city itself; and, perhaps most notably, it examines a wide variety of overlooked architectural works and their creators—individuals who did not fit into the dominant modernist narrative.
Offering new insights on Chicago public housing and O’Hare International Airport, on the Columbian Exposition and Marina City, on the city’s grid system and the place of women architects in the story of Chicago modernism, and on the subjective experience of living inside Chicago’s most well-known buildings, Chicago Architecture is a work of enormous scope and vision—a book as heady and towering as the skyline it considers.
442 pages | 12 color plates, 250 halftones, 22 line art | 8 1/2 x 10 | © 2005
Chicago Architecture and Urbanism
Architecture: American Architecture, Architecture--Criticism, History of Architecture
Table of Contents
Foreword by Richard Solomon
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Chicago Is History by Charles Waldheim and Katerina Rüedi Ray
Part One - Revisions
1. Western Architecture: Regionalism and Race in the Inland Architect
Joanna Merwood
2. Myth of the Chicago School
Robert Bruegmann
3. The Centrality of the Columbian Exposition in the History of Chicago Architecture
David van Zanten
4. William Le Baron Jenney and Chicago’s West Parks: From Prairies to Pleasure-Grounds
Reuben M. Rainey
5. Does Frank Lloyd Wright Belong in Chicago’s Architectural History?
Sidney K. Robinson
6. Preservation and Renewal in Post-World War II Chicago
Daniel Bluestone
7. More than Mies: Architecture of Chicago Multifamily Housing, 1935-65
Eric Mumford
8. Selling Mies
David Dunster
9. Inside Mies: Living at 860/880 Lake Shore Drive
Janet Abrams
Part Two - Alternatives
10. 1614 North Hermitage Avenue: Painting as Inscription
Julia Fish
11. A Century of Progress: An Alternate Tale
Lee Bey
12. Only Girl Architect Lonely
Susan F. King
13. Marion Mahoney Griffin: The Chicago Years
Pamela Hill
14. The Third Chicago School? Marking Sexual and Ethnic Identity
Christopher Reed
15. The Chicago Parks: Tableaus of Naturalization
Jane Wolff
16. The Architectural Photography of Hedrich-Blessing
Robert A. Sobieszek
17. Forms of the Grid
Mitchell Schwarzer
18. Wish You Were Here: Alvin Boyarsky’s Picture Postcards
Igor Marjanovic
19. Bertrand Goldberg: A Personal View of Architecture
Geoffrey Goldberg
20. Making Marina City: Men, Money, Masquerade and Modernity
Katerina Rüedi Ray
21. Walter Netsch: Field Theory
Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn
22. Systematic Genius: Walter Netsch and the Architecture of Bureaucracy
David Goodman
23. Opposing Mies: The Triangular Constructs of Harry Weese
Leah Ray
24. Diminishing High-Rise Public Housing
Janet L. Smith
25. Understanding Chicago’s High-Rise Public Housing Disaster
D. Bradford Hunt
26. Bas-Relief Urbanism: Chicago’s Figured Field
Sarah Whiting
27. From Operational Anonymity to Brand Identity: Chicago O’Hare
Charles Waldheim
28. From Flesh to Fiberglass: "Cows on Parade" in Chicago
C. Greig Crysler
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Chicago Is History by Charles Waldheim and Katerina Rüedi Ray
Part One - Revisions
1. Western Architecture: Regionalism and Race in the Inland Architect
Joanna Merwood
2. Myth of the Chicago School
Robert Bruegmann
3. The Centrality of the Columbian Exposition in the History of Chicago Architecture
David van Zanten
4. William Le Baron Jenney and Chicago’s West Parks: From Prairies to Pleasure-Grounds
Reuben M. Rainey
5. Does Frank Lloyd Wright Belong in Chicago’s Architectural History?
Sidney K. Robinson
6. Preservation and Renewal in Post-World War II Chicago
Daniel Bluestone
7. More than Mies: Architecture of Chicago Multifamily Housing, 1935-65
Eric Mumford
8. Selling Mies
David Dunster
9. Inside Mies: Living at 860/880 Lake Shore Drive
Janet Abrams
Part Two - Alternatives
10. 1614 North Hermitage Avenue: Painting as Inscription
Julia Fish
11. A Century of Progress: An Alternate Tale
Lee Bey
12. Only Girl Architect Lonely
Susan F. King
13. Marion Mahoney Griffin: The Chicago Years
Pamela Hill
14. The Third Chicago School? Marking Sexual and Ethnic Identity
Christopher Reed
15. The Chicago Parks: Tableaus of Naturalization
Jane Wolff
16. The Architectural Photography of Hedrich-Blessing
Robert A. Sobieszek
17. Forms of the Grid
Mitchell Schwarzer
18. Wish You Were Here: Alvin Boyarsky’s Picture Postcards
Igor Marjanovic
19. Bertrand Goldberg: A Personal View of Architecture
Geoffrey Goldberg
20. Making Marina City: Men, Money, Masquerade and Modernity
Katerina Rüedi Ray
21. Walter Netsch: Field Theory
Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn
22. Systematic Genius: Walter Netsch and the Architecture of Bureaucracy
David Goodman
23. Opposing Mies: The Triangular Constructs of Harry Weese
Leah Ray
24. Diminishing High-Rise Public Housing
Janet L. Smith
25. Understanding Chicago’s High-Rise Public Housing Disaster
D. Bradford Hunt
26. Bas-Relief Urbanism: Chicago’s Figured Field
Sarah Whiting
27. From Operational Anonymity to Brand Identity: Chicago O’Hare
Charles Waldheim
28. From Flesh to Fiberglass: "Cows on Parade" in Chicago
C. Greig Crysler
Notes
List of Contributors
Index