Archinect - News

Former Chicago nightclub where House music was born is now a designated landmark

2023-06-22T17:04:00-04:00

A one-time nightclub where the roots of house music spread from a group of Chicago DJs to worldwide prominence is now an official city landmark. [...] “The Warehouse at 206 South Jefferson is where Black and Brown Chicagoans celebrated life and love and the birth of house music, a genre that has taken over the globe [...] The Warehouse is where Frankie Knuckles, a Grammy winner and proud openly gay Black man, created a safe space for everyone.”

The Chicago City Council approved a landmark designation on Wednesday, June 21st, for The Warehouse at 206 S. Jefferson Street in the city’s West Loop. The three-story structure, built in 1906, served as a dance club between 1977 and 1982.

It was where world-renowned artist and House pioneer Frankie Knuckles served as the club’s resident DJ, who used the space to develop and popularize the genre. The club became a safe space for Chicago’s Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ communities. The venue closed in 1983 due to safety concerns.

Today, the building is home to law offices. It has long had no historical protections, allowing the potential of its demolition after being sold in December 2022. This led to the creation of a petition by Preservation Chicago that garnered close to 15,000 signatures calling on the City to recognize and preserve the building. The nonprofit organiz...

KPF renovation of Roche-Dinkeloo's 60 Wall Street comes under landmarks preservation review

2022-06-27T17:47:00-04:00

A key building feature on one of Kevin Roche’s most ingenious New York City designs is under threat of being erased, according to the preservation group Docomomo US.

The late Pritzker winner’s 60 Wall Street building is undergoing renovation by Kohn Pedersen Fox this summer, and the group says it includes the removal of the facade’s characteristic chamfered design elements and changes to the atrium that will alter its unique lobby space “beyond recognition.”

The atrium of 60 Wall Street. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user Matthew G. Bisanz (CC BY 3.0)

A rendering of the proposed changes to the atrium. Image courtesy Paramount Group

Completed in 1989, the postmodern office design was included in Docomomo’s list of 11 endangered historical places earlier this year and is, per the air rights transfer agreement that was signed when the property was sold a few years ago, legally required to be redeveloped in “harmonious relationship” to the Greek revival former National City Bank Buildi...

William Pereira-designed Hunt Branch Library in Orange County to be renovated

2020-06-10T12:17:00-04:00

The William Pereira-design Hunt Branch Library in Fullerton, California has received funds for a new renovation. Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silvia issued a $2.5 million budget request in 2019 which has since been approved and allocated to the City of Fullerton to be utilized in the renovation of the historic library.

The Hunt Branch Library was designated a local landmark by the Fullerton City Council back in November 2018, writes Save The Hunt Library, a group of Fullerton citizens who have been advocating for the preservation of the building.

"I am very proud to have worked with the state to secure $2.5 million for a future renovated Hunt Branch Library," said Assemblywoman Quirk-Silvia in a statement. "As a classroom teacher, and former City Council Member, I have always prioritized community spaces, literacy, and the arts."

The renovation project comes as several of Pereira's other notable works, including the original Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus and an extension to T...

Owner who tore down landmarked Neutra house ordered to rebuild

2018-12-17T14:06:00-05:00

After a landmarked home in San Francisco's Twin Peaks neighborhood was illegally razed last year, the city has ordered the property owner to rebuild an exact replica.

One of only five remaining homes in the city designed by the famed modernist architect Richard Neutra, the Largent House was bought last year for $1.7 million by Ross Johnston through his 49 Hopkins LLC. Johnston had received permission from the city to remodel, but decided to tear down the house instead and retroactively apply for a demolition permit.

Photo courtesy MLS San Francisco

The City Planning Commission's unprecedented vote on Thursday to order a replica was unanimous. They have also asked the owner to include a sidewalk plaque telling the saga of the tear down and required rebuild as a cautionary tale for others.

The homeowner had wanted to replace the 1,300 square foot home built in 1935 with a much larger house that would've been nearly 4,000 square feet—highlighting the growing trend of replacing (relati...

Philip Johnson + John Burgee's AT&T Building is now a designated landmark

2018-08-02T14:20:00-04:00

The designation protects the exterior of the building, including the facades of the office tower, annex, and enclosed covered passageway, and notably preserving its rose Stony Creek granite cladding and the broken pediment at its crown. Going forward, any proposed alterations to the exterior will require approval and permitting by the [NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission].

It's official. The AT&T Building is now a designated landmark. Late last year, Snøhetta's plans to redesign the historic building sparked months of heated debate among architects, preservationists, and critics.

Resignation towards the demolition of SOM's Union Carbide skyscaper

2018-03-05T16:53:00-05:00

[...] historians were dumbstruck last week when Chase announced plans to demolish the 52-story glass-curtain-wall skyscraper, which opened in 1961, and replace it with an even bigger structure. The news prompted two immediate responses. The first was an outcry by preservationists. That part was predictable; what is surprising this time around was their wistful sense of resignation.

News of the Union Carbide building's demolition a little over a week ago has incited commotion, yet there is a level of resignation to many of the outcries. Jeffrey Lieber takes a deeper look into why this relinquishment may exist around the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill skyscraper.

The building is not protected by landmark status and protestors grow weary of fighting for preservation and loosing time and time again. While these are key factors Leiber acknowledges, he also delves into the misattribution of the building and how this plays into its perception. Leiber explains, "...the architect remained invisible. This made it seem as if the building had arranged itself around the corporation’s internal drives. The corporation was de facto the architect."

Marina City balconies off-limits to residents during prolonged repair work: 'Summer Bummer'

2016-07-11T15:36:00-04:00

It’s shaping up to be one bummer of a summer for Marina City, where some residents have been banned from their balconies. City inspectors discovered trouble with nearly 2,000 balcony railings [...] While crews work to fix 1,920 handrail posts, 1,300 balusters and 1,020 bottom rails, some residents have been banned from using the balconies for four months or longer. [...] “What’s worse is that we’re not allowed to open the door to the balcony to let the breeze in.”

The iconic Marina City towers—now officially a city landmark—recently in the Archinect news:

When does a billboard become a protected landmark?

2016-05-09T14:06:00-04:00

If someone told you today that a new, brightly lit neon sign was going up across the street from where you live, you might react with disgust at the thought of such a commercial eyesore invading the skyline of your community. Yet when some older sign or billboard is threatened, everyone is suddenly up in arms, rushing to its defense. How does something as mundane as outdoor advertising grow to become considered an essential piece of the urban fabric?

“They become landmarks, loved because they have been visible at certain street corners — or from many vantage points across the city — for a long time,” writes Michael J. Auer in the brief. “Such signs are valued for their familiarity, their beauty, their humor, their size, or even their grotesqueness. In these cases, signs transcend their conventional role as vehicles of information, as identifiers of something else. When signs reach this stage, they accumulate rich layers of meaning. They no longer merely advertise, but are valued in and of themselves. They become icons.”

Chicago's Marina City designated official landmark status — it's about time!

2016-02-12T15:22:00-05:00

...it's tempting to turn cartwheels over the Chicago City Council's vote to grant permanent landmark status to Marina City, the city within a city best known for its iconic corncob-shaped towers. Marina City was a landmark building that lacked official landmark status and was therefore vulnerable — if not to demolition, then to insensitive additions that chipped away at the sculpted beauty of its curving concrete.

Since the process began last July, Chicago City Council unanimously voted 48-0 (with the absence of two aldermen) to designate Bertrand Goldberg's midcentury icon as a historic city landmark as of Wednesday, according to Loop North News.

"Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, deserves credit for championing the protection of Marina City..." Blair Kamin writes in the Chicago Tribune. "Yet it can't be forgotten that Reilly in 2012 supported the demolition of the Goldberg-designed Prentice Women's Hospital, a building that lacked Marina City's picture-postcard appeal but was nonetheless worth saving because of its boldly engineered concrete shell structure and humanistic interior. In a sense, Prentice died so that Marina could live."

Previous news on this topic:

Only one vote left before Marina City can become official city landmark

2015-11-10T12:50:00-05:00

[On Thursday, November 5], the Commission on Chicago Landmarks unanimously voted to recommend Chicago Landmark status to the Marina City complex. [...] A resolution will be drafted and will head to the Chicago City Council in December for a final vote.

This seems like a done deal. As quoted in Loop North News, Commission on Chicago Landmarks chairman, Rafael Leon: "everybody recognizes those buildings around the world, that the moment that they see it, they see Chicago. I’m so glad that we have gotten to the point of designating these buildings as landmarks.”

For the lead-up to Marina City's landmark status:

Chicago's famed Marina City seems destined for landmark status

2015-10-16T12:40:00-04:00

Marina City residents support landmark designation because it would help upgrade the complex's concrete exterior through the city's "Adopt a Landmark" zoning provision [...] The measure lets developers build more floor space in return for funding improvements to official city landmarks. Landmark status would allow the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to regulate changes to the exterior of Marina City

Marina City, aka "the corncobs," was given preliminary landmark status back in July. The designation is expected to become official in early 2016.

David and Gladys Wright house pursues landmark status

2015-09-21T17:43:00-04:00

The organization seeking to turn the David and Gladys Wright House in Phoenix into an educational and cultural center filed for historic landmark protection last week, seeking official status for a 6.1-acre site before following through with plans to open it to the public. [...] The designation would provide preservationists with a nice ending to the long saga of this spiral residence, which at one point in 2012 was slated for demolition.