Hold the Bean

The whole blogsphere seems to be up in arms about an article by Ben Joravsky that appeared in the Chicago Reader about a photographer accosted by security guards for taking a picture of Anish Kapoor's "Cloud Gate" with a tripod. The article (if you have a Flickr account you can view the article via New (sub)Urbanism) indicates that the elements of Millennium Park are copyrighted by their respective authors, so no professional photographs can be taken without paying a fee. The accosted photographer actually slid security a $20 bill to bypass the higher fee.

As absurd at this is - and most people picking up this story come to that consensus - it begs the question, "Is Millennium Park a public space?" The default answer is yes, but if that were the case there wouldn't be an issue, or so it seems to me. In some way the Park has become a hybrid public/private (read: corporate) space that's confusing copyright and civic laws.

In response people have been adding their photos to Flickr, 140 and counting at the time of this post. I'll just add a few a couple of mine below.





Too bad that such a wonderful object (ironically more skewed reflections of its surroundings than a proper object, per se) is being shrouded with this mess.

Book of the Moment

Christopher "A Pattern Language" Alexander has completed his four-volume omnibus culminating his exploration of architectural theory over thirty years. Nature of Order focuses on the topic of living structure. Each book can be read separately but are also interdependent and connected.







NPR features an interview with Alexander, who talks all-too-briefly about the ideas behind the books in a laid-back and understandable manner.



From Alexander's web page:

In Book 1 [The Phenomenon of Life], Alexander defines life and living structure as the necessary criteria for quality in buildings; in Book 2 [The Process of Creating Life, he] examines the kinds of process that are capable of generating living structure; in Book 3 [A Vision of a Living World, he] presents hundreds of his own buildings and those of other contemporaries who have used similar methods consistent with the theory of living process; in Book 4 [The Luminous Ground], the culmination of the quartet, [he] addresses the cosmological implications of the theory he has constructed and presented.

Alexander's 2,000+ page tome is on par with something like William Vollmann's Rising Up and Rising Down, a 3,000+ page, 7-volume treatise on violence and terrorism.



Regardless if one agrees or disagrees with Alexander's ideas, the sheer ambition of his project, and his desire to improve the quality of life for everybody via his theories and writings is admirable, to say the least.



(via Archinect)

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:





Burr Elementary School in Fairfield, Connecticut by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.



The updated book feature is The Most Beautiful House in the World, by Witold Rybczynski.



Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Demolition of the Century Building

Ecology of Absence's site on the St. Louis structure, with photographs updated on 02/01 and 02/03.



Flight 93 National Memorial

Stage one finalists in the competition to memorialize the victims of the September 11 flight downed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.



Visible Food

A website and database created to expose the hidden costs of the globalized system that produces, processes and distributes our food, by Chicago-based artist and writer Claire Pentecost. (via we make money not art)

Short Cuts

According to the Chicago Tribune's web page, the installation "Short Cuts", by artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset has been installed on the Museum of Contemporary Art's plaza.



The piece resembles a traffic accident and is part of the museum's upcoming exhibition "Universal Experience", a much-anticipated show that focuses on travel and the artist's experience of different cultures. In an unprecedented move, the show will take over the whole museum and its exterior.







"Short Cuts" has been on display in Europe, originally in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, and in Basel above. I'll try to post a picture of the installation if I walk by the MCA this week.

Architecture A/V

A couple audio-visual links for your enjoyment:

Biographer Franz Schulze speaks about the legacy of Phillip Johnson, from Chicago Public Radio's Hello Beautiful! (RealPlayer req'd).



and



Architecture Radio features video footage from Fabrication, Acadia/AIA's Conference last November. (QuickTime req'd)

It's Groundhog Day!

Some links for your enjoyment on this day:

- My review of Ryan Gilbey's book on the Bill Murray film.

- The Internet Movie Database's page on the film.

- Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me, a page with lots of text and links on the film's religious impact, by Paul Schindler.

- The Official Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club.

- The Mysteries of Groundhog Day Unveiled

Jahn Builds in Streeterville

In this morning's Chicago Sun-Times, David Roeder reports on a residential development at 600 N. Fairbanks (on the northwest corner of Ohio and Fairbanks) in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood. Designed by Helmut Jahn, and developed by Geoffrey Ruttenberg of The Brixton Group, the 27-story high-rise would offer 197 residences, generous glazing, and a celebration of the automobile via a ramp to the parking garage visible at the base of the building. The garage itself would be built over an existing three-story building to the north, currently housing such local dining favorites as Timothy O'Toole's, West Egg, and the Indian Garden.





Image scanned from the Sun-Times



Streeterville is a neighborhood of high-rises, this site being almost on its "edge", close to the Northwestern Memorial Hospital that occupies the blocks to the north (right in the image above). Having been a parking lot recently and just a plain 'ol vacant lot before that, it is refreshing to see a proposal for the site's use. I don't foresee any local opposition to the development, since 27 stories in this area is not that big (though the article mentions the units will have ten-foot ceilings, pushing up the actual height of the building to a comparable 30-story structure).



Also the simple design is inoffensive, though I hope the romantic notion of putting the parking ramp on display is successful when built. The Contemporaine takes a similar risk at its base and pulls it off, though it doesn't strive for the level of transparency that Jahn's rendering indicates. Regardless, it appears that architects are (finally!) finding creative ways to deal with Chicago's required parking for residential structures, that is beyond the common "hide it behind the facade" solution. Not only does Jahn put it on display, he lifts it up and over another building, seemingly defying gravity in the process.



Now it remains to see if the project goes ahead, though according to the article, "buyers have shown a preference toward modern designs in most of the latest projects being marketed."