Conservative, especially in architecture design. The clients is conservative and so is the public too. I wonder does it mean the architect could achieve the success easier than in other places like LA and NY, Boston? I gues this is one of the huge reasons why some great young designers want to live in CHicago? Here I refer 'design' to generic design like SD not CD, CA.
What do you think? I know I still need to mention other architectural filed like CD, CA . But let us focus on the design exectution first.
Maybe I don't understand the question – are you saying it is easier for an Architect to achieve success in Chicago than it is to achieve success in Boston, NY and LA – and this is because…why? Because building conservatively in Chicago is an easier way out to achieve success? Or, are you saying that architects have a better chance at influencing a move from a conservative point of view to something else? Dazed and confused – sorry that's another person's handle:) Ah, here come the rebuttals…
A friend of mine from Chicago opted for an interior design program instead of architecture because there were neither enough opportunities (to study) nor the market (demand for renewal) locally. From his comments I gather that the reality is somewhat contrary to your presumptions. Sure, the existing scape of Chicago is amazing, my impression is that of the 'open-air museum' feel of Florence, in that it's good to look at, not to touch. In which case, conservatism is still the lingo they will adopt.
I am not trying to deter you from your aspirations as I have no first hand knowledge of the area, but I hope this sheds some light in any case.
talks a bit about the current vibe in Chicago. IMO, the climate here is rabidly conservative. I think a lot of it is driven by Mayor Daley, who seems hell-bent on transforming Chicago from a real working city into an overpriced theme park for tourists and conventioneers. Things that make Chicago a unique city are rapidly being replaced by the same schlock that you'd find in Indianapolis or Naperville. (Just this week, it was announced that Carson Pirie Scott is vacating its famed Sullivan-designed State Street store, and by this time next month Marshall Field's will be Macy's.) I still love Chicago, but it's not the city it used to be, and I'm itching to move back to NYC once I finish my undergrad.
Chicago is first and foremost a business city. The holy trinity here is Father Daley, Son Daley and the Dollar Spirit. It may not be the best place to be avante garde but its a great place to practice architecture in the Chicago tradition.
is the lack of avant garde architects the reason that fields was bought out or that carsons is closing their store? maybe they'll knock that sullivan dinosaur down and put in some avant garde faceted boil.
VR - Field's and Carson's are name only, the companies have been gone for years. The market is dictating the change for State St. from 18th century style Dept stores to boutique scale retail as well as a mixed use office, shopping entertainment district. I happen to work on State and can look at Carson Parrie Scaott right now. The sad decrepit state of those buildings need a change in ownership for revitalization.
im not really sure what 'chicago is not the city it used to be' means... nor how the city is responsible for marshal fields or carsons demise on state street. as a matter of fact, though daley might be out to increase the citys tourist appeal, and its convention revenue, i also fail to see how thats a negative?
im curious what chicago used to be? Are we talking chicago of the worlds fair? when was the last time chicago was associated with anything positive? the 1910's-20's? this city is still prominantly known to internationals and non citizens as dirty, industrial, and dangerous. daley is doing a good job dispelling those myths, and attempting to clean up a lot of the mess previous mayors including his father left behind...
as far as chicago being conservative... im not sure about that. i think as in all of america, building here is market driven, and good design costs more than cookie cutters. the condo boom on the near south has not yielded any particularly interesting buildings not because chicago is conservative, but because developers are looking to quickly and cheaply capatalize on the late 90's boom.
and lets alll remember here, chicago - 3mil people ny - 8mil people... be fair, NY is 3 times the size of chicago and draws from a much larger pool of talent, cash, influence, etc. give chicago a break
I don't think the dearth of avant garde architects and the department stores closing are directly related to each other, but I see them as symptoms of the same problem. As Chicago's home-grown companies and institutions are either being swallowed up by out-of-town entities or disappearing altogether, I think we're also seeing the local construction scene dominated by out-of-town architects, especially in the case of the big corporate firms. Even firms that used to be Chicago institutions are now headquartered elsewhere: SOM is now officially a New York firm, and I understand that Perkins + Will is now headquartered in Atlanta. In so many industries, we're rapidly moving from being a headquarters city to being just another branch office. Even the few high-profile "avant garde" projects are being done by out-of-town starchitects. (Gehry, Koolhaas, Renzo, etc.) The previous generation of Chicago's home-grown talent (Netsch, Weese, Goldberg, et al) is rapidly passing on, and their shoes aren't being filled by the new generation. Ralph Johnson of P+W, Helmut Jahn, and Studio Gang are doing exciting things, but they seem few and far between.
Another factor in the city's decline architecturally -- as mentioned in my link above -- is the profound lack of architectural educational opportunities here. It's obscene that we only have two accredited schools of architecture (Philly by comparison has four, and the NYC area has seven), and neither UIC nor IIT seem to be attracting top-caliper talent right now. As a result, I think the level of discourse in the city has gone down a few notches, and people such as yours truly end up going to NYC or LA to complete our schooling... and most likely stay there. Say what you want about Tigerman, but at least he made the news once in a while and got people talking about architecture.
It shows how far Chicago's architectural cachet has fallen when a local newspaper (I think it might have even been the Trib) commented a few years ago that the Frank Gehry bandshell finally "put Chicago on the map". Great... We've finally caught up to Toledo and Iowa City in having our own Frank Gehry building. :-/
Another thing - While our cities name designers seem to be shrinking we're actually gaining in monster sized archi-engineering firms that no one ever heres about, unless you want an airport or power plant. These firms will form the technical nucleus that will eventually attract design talent due to the shear dollar volume of projects.
As for the decline of the city - Its traditional business have eroded some but it is becoming one of the financial capital hubs of the world, in fact the Merc has a higher amopunt of liquid capital flowing through it's markets than any exchange in the world. As our core businesses change, so to will the look and feel of the design. Its the growing pains of being a global city newborn.
Rather than looking at states, I think it's more helpful to look at what's available in a given metro area:
Within the city of Chicago we have: IIT and UIC. Within the metro area you add Judson College in Elgin, and within a 2-hour drive you have U of I Urbana, UW Milwaukee, and (in a stretch) Notre Dame.
Within NYC itself you have: Columbia, CCNY, Pratt, Parsons, and Cooper Union. Within the NY metro area you add NJIT and NYIT, and within a 2-hour drive you add Princeton, Yale, and (in a stretch) the four Philadelphia schools: Penn, Drexel, Temple, and Philadelphia University.
And aside from quantity, I think the quality bears mentioning. IIT and UIC have respectable programs, but I don't think they're attracting the same talent or media attention as some of the programs in/around NYC.
(I know very little about the LA scene, so I can't really comment on that.)
the typical midwestern client is what's conservative, there are very few firms that can get clients to go out on a limb here. The fact is you can find eclectic wannabe's a dime a dozen in NY or LA. Everyone here could care less. Chicagoans want good service, good food, good products, good buildings, good parks, etc. (NY service blows chunks) Chicagoans want substance. Not image, not fashion, not obscure academic dimensia. Daley could care less what buildings look like, but wants to push LEED and other green initiatives. (So what if recycling is crap, he knows it, we know it, we're just too lazy to buy a different set of bags) Oprah is busy catering the the suburban mom. And the Chicago Trib is indifferent because they own everything else. Blair is such a dope, never takes any shots at anyone, everything is great architecture. Meanwhile, people other places wonder why everyone is upset at Rem's building? Is it the bastardization of his concept? Or the fact the roof ponds like hell in one spot and sprung a huge leak? Regardless, the client market here isn't willing to do stupid stuff. Progress requires failure/risk and that's not who we are. Although, the first chance I get, I'm dumping a ton of money into building my own extravagent experiments. Anyway, it's just my two cents.
But to the original question, success is not easier. Success in the midwest is different. Depending upon your personal goals, chicago may make your ideal success easier or harder. Until 2 years ago the market was chocked full of architects. Completely saturated by UIC and IIT. Then it seemed to open up a bit, people started spending more money. And although everyone is crammed into their spaces and work is good, I think hiring is slowing down a bunch. Either way, I think some factions of the Chicago school are slowly positioning itself for global domination. (right lletdownl?)
And in any event, we still have great architecture, great streets, alleys!, the best "casual" architecture around IMHO, and, of course, the Chicago White Sox.
except i believe your midwestern generalization is not taken far enough.
quick poll... anyone here... left right or mid coast have an aboundance of clients willing to throw their money around on buildings they are not sure will serve their needs? sitting on millions of dollars, ready to become an american Medici?
i dont think so
but its tru about there being an intellectual and cultural ellite positioning itself within the bowels of the beast called chicago... soon you will all see, prepare to be oraganized yo
and to be fair were comparing chicago, its seems, only to nyc and la. i mean to talk about conervative and boring soul killing architecture, you can do a hell of a lot worse than chicago. look at most of the south. or even urban america in cities that are 500,000 people or less. not a lot of architectural sexiness there. i mean god knows were not nyc or europw but were a world better than atlanta.
yeah, i was gonna say the same thing: the typical client anywhere is conservative. you think there's avant garde architecture in boston?! ha. it's a wash, like most places. the least "avant garde" arch climate i've seen personally seems to be DC's, but then again, the metro areas all seem to be more or less the same i'd say. meh.
No argument there... Despite Chicago's faults, it's still a far cry better than someplace like Atlanta or Phoenix. But it's also depressing to remember how elegant North Michigan Avenue used to be before City Hall gave developers the blessing to wipe out entire blocks of landmark buildings and replace them with badly-designed corporate schlock. Just in the time I've been living here, it's gone from Magnificent Mile to Mediocre Mile. I doubt any other city would have allowed that to happen on such a scale. And then there's the whole Soldier Field debacle...
(In fairness, NYC seems to have the opposite problem, where any blue-haired old woman can file lawsuit after lawsuit to stop a much-needed project simply because it would block her view.)
atlanta is far less conservative design wise???!!! obviously youve never been there. the only thing getting built in atlanta is a sea mcmansions and strip malls. there is no design culture to speak of on the scale befitting a city its size. i mean yes the high but come on. if anything the high just brings into sharp relief the rest of the built environment in atlanta as being completely developer driven drivel. if gatech didnt have the office da people coming in to make something intersting happen you could ignore the south all together.
Joe Rosa moved to Chicago (from SF) and is putting on a show in november titled "Young Chicago" that should provide some answers to the questions of who the talent is, right?
that young chicago link says "since the earliest 20th century chicago blah blah blah young architects. try since 1871. people really ought to do some fucking research.
i never said it wasn't but you can find some good buildings there. cities (not talking about phoenix) are less about buildings than architect geeks think they are.
Am I reading this right? Comparing Chicago to Atlanta or Phoenix? I'm with Vado, cities are about much more than buildings. The fact that Chicago has far too many SOM and SOM look-a-like towers that really aren't all that architecturally stimulating doesn't bother me one bit. Just walk the streets of Chicago. That city has something that Atlanta or Phoneix will never have. Chicago has an energy, an aura, that most cities don't have.
yeah, i agree. but of the people i know who live in phx, are more likely to have interesting design projects and are in general far happier with their careers than architects i know working in chicago. i like chicago better than phoenix as a city, but certainly there is more to life than the aura of big cities. i can't say much for atlanta but the hiking and the mountain biking in chicago just don't add up sometimes.
But bossman, I personally know people that left Phoenix because they hated their jobs. How can you call a city conservative because of the architects that work in that city.
I've done work in Chicago from an office in Minneapolis. Maybe I'm the architect making the conservative feel in that city. Then again our Minneapolis office has done work, some quite visible, in NYC, Atlanta and Phoenix. Just as NYC and Chicago firms are doing work all over the country.
The only thing in a city that can affect the design mood of that city is the city planning dept, zoning, etc. Gov't related. But as I said, where you work shouldn't make a difference on the interesting factor since most large firms doing prominent buildings are national, if not international. Single family homes may be another thing but eccentric people for those jobs can be found in any city.
Now ranking a city based on recreation, night life, culture, etc. That's a different story. If it wasn't for Chicago, Illinois would be no different from Kansas. It's flat farmland and quite boring. Then again, you'd never know it walking the streets of Chicago.
there was a PBS series back when we were living there called "chicago: city of the century" or something like that. it was incredible. but chicago really is/was a city of the 20th century, not the 21st. and more importantly, it was a city of the 19th century, a city that epitomized the late industrial revolution in the US.
part of the problem in chicago is as LiG said: the architecture schools are not attracting the kind of revolutionaries that used to flock to chicago.
of course, florence helped spark the renaissance but nothing much from there since. the revolutions of the world are born in the periphery and sustained in the center. sorry, chicago, but you were not nor are not in the center.
well i'm not saying that people should leave chicago, but my original post was in response to someone saying that the environment of chicago is far better than some other places, and in my experience that isn't necessarily so. chicago happens to be one of my favorite cities, and i'm sure some people leave every city because of their jobs, but my overall feeling of the architectural climate of chicago is that it just isn't as cutting edge as phoenix. that said, i think phx is still riding on some ideas and issues that, while interesting 10 years ago, have probably lost their reference today, and that i think the so-called "desert modern" architecture is losing its rigor and developing into a style. but what is chicago known for? what is chicago's great contribution to architecture culture in the last 50 years? i don't agree at all with you that governments are the only thing capable of affecting the mood of a city. cities have cultures like everywhere else; chicago is probably the most family-oriented big city in the country. it is conservative. i would argue that detroit is more liberal than chicago. i feel that the environment you work in does matter, be it your office, the town you are in, or the culture you are amongst. all of those things affect your general quality of life, and how easy it is to get up and go to work in the morning. as for me, i've worked on "national and international" projects before, but in my experience the local architecture culture can affect the internal mood of the firm, and thus much of the work that comes out of such a firm, regardless of where it ends up in the country, is in some sense a product of the environment of it's origin.
should architecture reflect its city...or the city reflect its architecture?
you see something like manhattan with the role its buildings with their density and height do have an effect on the people of NYC and same with LA... but you could say it is an effect of the weather (ie the south...slower) or the people...types, ethnicities, number, etc.
a city is an amazing organism with its hundreds of dynamic parts. i would love chicago to have an architecture completely distinct from different areas even in ILLINOIS!
what i am noticing more and more is my city in the south to have elements that are "every city". afterall we are exporting our suburbs and suburban culture to areas all over the WORLD!
part of it is that we as a profession are lazy in really understanding a place. we just want to create the next great thing!!
I think Chicago gets known a lot for its giant SOM/RTKL/Gensler... type of firms with large corporate clients - which limits what people expect to see when they think architecture in Chicago. Plus, lets face it, there's no publishers here. A quirky building in Brooklyn has a better shot of getting its young architect attention there more than anywhere else because its where all the "hip" publishers are. I am not taking a swipe at NYC, (okay, maybe a little) I think Chicago (and a lot of other towns) need to promote locally more - to the average buisness/homeowner and not just the "trade" either. This has to come from within and I just don't see that attitude.
Now, as far as people on the coasts taking notice, unless its a "Big Name Architect"(TM) a lot of those people whose job it is to promote architecture aren't going to come to flyover country - and the people in the heartland should stop waiting for them to arrive and do it themselves.
Here in Chicago we have have a show Hello Beautiful supposedly dedicated to the local art and architecture scene in chicago - but his entries on Louis Sullivan or Millenium Park easily outnumber his highlighting of young up-and-coming architects in the area - to my memory at least. Its this sort of thing which is frustrating about this town - its not that we don't have good fresh architecture here - its just that you'd never know it if you did. I don't think Chicago needs the attitude of the coasts which says its not real until its been in the NYT/TV/Record... but, at least for the local Chicagoan, we need to be aware that not only Chicago Architecture not die with Wright, its still alive, well and there for the taking.
many well-known architect said Chicago is:
Conservative, especially in architecture design. The clients is conservative and so is the public too. I wonder does it mean the architect could achieve the success easier than in other places like LA and NY, Boston? I gues this is one of the huge reasons why some great young designers want to live in CHicago? Here I refer 'design' to generic design like SD not CD, CA.
What do you think? I know I still need to mention other architectural filed like CD, CA . But let us focus on the design exectution first.
Maybe I don't understand the question – are you saying it is easier for an Architect to achieve success in Chicago than it is to achieve success in Boston, NY and LA – and this is because…why? Because building conservatively in Chicago is an easier way out to achieve success? Or, are you saying that architects have a better chance at influencing a move from a conservative point of view to something else? Dazed and confused – sorry that's another person's handle:) Ah, here come the rebuttals…
A friend of mine from Chicago opted for an interior design program instead of architecture because there were neither enough opportunities (to study) nor the market (demand for renewal) locally. From his comments I gather that the reality is somewhat contrary to your presumptions. Sure, the existing scape of Chicago is amazing, my impression is that of the 'open-air museum' feel of Florence, in that it's good to look at, not to touch. In which case, conservatism is still the lingo they will adopt.
I am not trying to deter you from your aspirations as I have no first hand knowledge of the area, but I hope this sheds some light in any case.
Good luck!
talks a bit about the current vibe in Chicago. IMO, the climate here is rabidly conservative. I think a lot of it is driven by Mayor Daley, who seems hell-bent on transforming Chicago from a real working city into an overpriced theme park for tourists and conventioneers. Things that make Chicago a unique city are rapidly being replaced by the same schlock that you'd find in Indianapolis or Naperville. (Just this week, it was announced that Carson Pirie Scott is vacating its famed Sullivan-designed State Street store, and by this time next month Marshall Field's will be Macy's.) I still love Chicago, but it's not the city it used to be, and I'm itching to move back to NYC once I finish my undergrad.
Chicago is first and foremost a business city. The holy trinity here is Father Daley, Son Daley and the Dollar Spirit. It may not be the best place to be avante garde but its a great place to practice architecture in the Chicago tradition.
whatdya mean theres a shiny crumply bandshell and a snaky bridge that goes nowhere.
however, not by a Chicago architect
... a large, midwestern American city on the banks of Lake Michigan????
is the lack of avant garde architects the reason that fields was bought out or that carsons is closing their store? maybe they'll knock that sullivan dinosaur down and put in some avant garde faceted boil.
VR - Field's and Carson's are name only, the companies have been gone for years. The market is dictating the change for State St. from 18th century style Dept stores to boutique scale retail as well as a mixed use office, shopping entertainment district. I happen to work on State and can look at Carson Parrie Scaott right now. The sad decrepit state of those buildings need a change in ownership for revitalization.
you got the wrong century there...yeah tear em down and that rookery and monodnack too.
im not really sure what 'chicago is not the city it used to be' means... nor how the city is responsible for marshal fields or carsons demise on state street. as a matter of fact, though daley might be out to increase the citys tourist appeal, and its convention revenue, i also fail to see how thats a negative?
im curious what chicago used to be? Are we talking chicago of the worlds fair? when was the last time chicago was associated with anything positive? the 1910's-20's? this city is still prominantly known to internationals and non citizens as dirty, industrial, and dangerous. daley is doing a good job dispelling those myths, and attempting to clean up a lot of the mess previous mayors including his father left behind...
as far as chicago being conservative... im not sure about that. i think as in all of america, building here is market driven, and good design costs more than cookie cutters. the condo boom on the near south has not yielded any particularly interesting buildings not because chicago is conservative, but because developers are looking to quickly and cheaply capatalize on the late 90's boom.
and lets alll remember here, chicago - 3mil people ny - 8mil people... be fair, NY is 3 times the size of chicago and draws from a much larger pool of talent, cash, influence, etc. give chicago a break
evil,
didnt carsons just put millions into renovating it? i think it looks pretty hot
I don't think the dearth of avant garde architects and the department stores closing are directly related to each other, but I see them as symptoms of the same problem. As Chicago's home-grown companies and institutions are either being swallowed up by out-of-town entities or disappearing altogether, I think we're also seeing the local construction scene dominated by out-of-town architects, especially in the case of the big corporate firms. Even firms that used to be Chicago institutions are now headquartered elsewhere: SOM is now officially a New York firm, and I understand that Perkins + Will is now headquartered in Atlanta. In so many industries, we're rapidly moving from being a headquarters city to being just another branch office. Even the few high-profile "avant garde" projects are being done by out-of-town starchitects. (Gehry, Koolhaas, Renzo, etc.) The previous generation of Chicago's home-grown talent (Netsch, Weese, Goldberg, et al) is rapidly passing on, and their shoes aren't being filled by the new generation. Ralph Johnson of P+W, Helmut Jahn, and Studio Gang are doing exciting things, but they seem few and far between.
Another factor in the city's decline architecturally -- as mentioned in my link above -- is the profound lack of architectural educational opportunities here. It's obscene that we only have two accredited schools of architecture (Philly by comparison has four, and the NYC area has seven), and neither UIC nor IIT seem to be attracting top-caliper talent right now. As a result, I think the level of discourse in the city has gone down a few notches, and people such as yours truly end up going to NYC or LA to complete our schooling... and most likely stay there. Say what you want about Tigerman, but at least he made the news once in a while and got people talking about architecture.
It shows how far Chicago's architectural cachet has fallen when a local newspaper (I think it might have even been the Trib) commented a few years ago that the Frank Gehry bandshell finally "put Chicago on the map". Great... We've finally caught up to Toledo and Iowa City in having our own Frank Gehry building. :-/
i don't know, LiG. 3 schools of arch in illinois + archeworks isn't so bad. ca has 7; fla 5; new york 4.
ky only has one school of architecture.
no one said tear them down except for vado. Theyre just not suited for retail anymore and a new use is whats needed.
sorry. ny has 5. typo.
Another thing - While our cities name designers seem to be shrinking we're actually gaining in monster sized archi-engineering firms that no one ever heres about, unless you want an airport or power plant. These firms will form the technical nucleus that will eventually attract design talent due to the shear dollar volume of projects.
As for the decline of the city - Its traditional business have eroded some but it is becoming one of the financial capital hubs of the world, in fact the Merc has a higher amopunt of liquid capital flowing through it's markets than any exchange in the world. As our core businesses change, so to will the look and feel of the design. Its the growing pains of being a global city newborn.
Rather than looking at states, I think it's more helpful to look at what's available in a given metro area:
Within the city of Chicago we have: IIT and UIC. Within the metro area you add Judson College in Elgin, and within a 2-hour drive you have U of I Urbana, UW Milwaukee, and (in a stretch) Notre Dame.
Within NYC itself you have: Columbia, CCNY, Pratt, Parsons, and Cooper Union. Within the NY metro area you add NJIT and NYIT, and within a 2-hour drive you add Princeton, Yale, and (in a stretch) the four Philadelphia schools: Penn, Drexel, Temple, and Philadelphia University.
And aside from quantity, I think the quality bears mentioning. IIT and UIC have respectable programs, but I don't think they're attracting the same talent or media attention as some of the programs in/around NYC.
(I know very little about the LA scene, so I can't really comment on that.)
(cross-posted with evilplatypus)
the typical midwestern client is what's conservative, there are very few firms that can get clients to go out on a limb here. The fact is you can find eclectic wannabe's a dime a dozen in NY or LA. Everyone here could care less. Chicagoans want good service, good food, good products, good buildings, good parks, etc. (NY service blows chunks) Chicagoans want substance. Not image, not fashion, not obscure academic dimensia. Daley could care less what buildings look like, but wants to push LEED and other green initiatives. (So what if recycling is crap, he knows it, we know it, we're just too lazy to buy a different set of bags) Oprah is busy catering the the suburban mom. And the Chicago Trib is indifferent because they own everything else. Blair is such a dope, never takes any shots at anyone, everything is great architecture. Meanwhile, people other places wonder why everyone is upset at Rem's building? Is it the bastardization of his concept? Or the fact the roof ponds like hell in one spot and sprung a huge leak? Regardless, the client market here isn't willing to do stupid stuff. Progress requires failure/risk and that's not who we are. Although, the first chance I get, I'm dumping a ton of money into building my own extravagent experiments. Anyway, it's just my two cents.
But to the original question, success is not easier. Success in the midwest is different. Depending upon your personal goals, chicago may make your ideal success easier or harder. Until 2 years ago the market was chocked full of architects. Completely saturated by UIC and IIT. Then it seemed to open up a bit, people started spending more money. And although everyone is crammed into their spaces and work is good, I think hiring is slowing down a bunch. Either way, I think some factions of the Chicago school are slowly positioning itself for global domination. (right lletdownl?)
And in any event, we still have great architecture, great streets, alleys!, the best "casual" architecture around IMHO, and, of course, the Chicago White Sox.
ok, so what, I'm bias.
where and what are all these other great "avant garde buildings" everyone is talking about anyway???freedom tower?
amen postal
except i believe your midwestern generalization is not taken far enough.
quick poll... anyone here... left right or mid coast have an aboundance of clients willing to throw their money around on buildings they are not sure will serve their needs? sitting on millions of dollars, ready to become an american Medici?
i dont think so
but its tru about there being an intellectual and cultural ellite positioning itself within the bowels of the beast called chicago... soon you will all see, prepare to be oraganized yo
oh
and go go sox
and to be fair were comparing chicago, its seems, only to nyc and la. i mean to talk about conervative and boring soul killing architecture, you can do a hell of a lot worse than chicago. look at most of the south. or even urban america in cities that are 500,000 people or less. not a lot of architectural sexiness there. i mean god knows were not nyc or europw but were a world better than atlanta.
yeah, i was gonna say the same thing: the typical client anywhere is conservative. you think there's avant garde architecture in boston?! ha. it's a wash, like most places. the least "avant garde" arch climate i've seen personally seems to be DC's, but then again, the metro areas all seem to be more or less the same i'd say. meh.
No argument there... Despite Chicago's faults, it's still a far cry better than someplace like Atlanta or Phoenix. But it's also depressing to remember how elegant North Michigan Avenue used to be before City Hall gave developers the blessing to wipe out entire blocks of landmark buildings and replace them with badly-designed corporate schlock. Just in the time I've been living here, it's gone from Magnificent Mile to Mediocre Mile. I doubt any other city would have allowed that to happen on such a scale. And then there's the whole Soldier Field debacle...
(In fairness, NYC seems to have the opposite problem, where any blue-haired old woman can file lawsuit after lawsuit to stop a much-needed project simply because it would block her view.)
yeah but atlanta and phx are far less conservative, design wise.
I like soldier field - best thing to happen to it besides tearing it down
i love bay windows!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
atlanta and phx are less conservative cause they have nothing to presevere except soul less and gut wrenching sadness
if your into that sort of thing
man, i think i need to move to atl
i totally agree clients are conservative anywhere. even here in LA most people don't want something progressive; so you gotta convince them they do.
there are some great bulidings in phoenix
atlanta is far less conservative design wise???!!! obviously youve never been there. the only thing getting built in atlanta is a sea mcmansions and strip malls. there is no design culture to speak of on the scale befitting a city its size. i mean yes the high but come on. if anything the high just brings into sharp relief the rest of the built environment in atlanta as being completely developer driven drivel. if gatech didnt have the office da people coming in to make something intersting happen you could ignore the south all together.
Joe Rosa moved to Chicago (from SF) and is putting on a show in november titled "Young Chicago" that should provide some answers to the questions of who the talent is, right?
Young Chicago
that young chicago link says "since the earliest 20th century chicago blah blah blah young architects. try since 1871. people really ought to do some fucking research.
vado
phoenix is still a dump
i never said it wasn't but you can find some good buildings there. cities (not talking about phoenix) are less about buildings than architect geeks think they are.
Vado, Im concerned for your well being. You seem much more negative in your sarcasm today. Did your cat die?
Am I reading this right? Comparing Chicago to Atlanta or Phoenix? I'm with Vado, cities are about much more than buildings. The fact that Chicago has far too many SOM and SOM look-a-like towers that really aren't all that architecturally stimulating doesn't bother me one bit. Just walk the streets of Chicago. That city has something that Atlanta or Phoneix will never have. Chicago has an energy, an aura, that most cities don't have.
yeah, i agree. but of the people i know who live in phx, are more likely to have interesting design projects and are in general far happier with their careers than architects i know working in chicago. i like chicago better than phoenix as a city, but certainly there is more to life than the aura of big cities. i can't say much for atlanta but the hiking and the mountain biking in chicago just don't add up sometimes.
i would hardly say that it's a "dump"
But bossman, I personally know people that left Phoenix because they hated their jobs. How can you call a city conservative because of the architects that work in that city.
I've done work in Chicago from an office in Minneapolis. Maybe I'm the architect making the conservative feel in that city. Then again our Minneapolis office has done work, some quite visible, in NYC, Atlanta and Phoenix. Just as NYC and Chicago firms are doing work all over the country.
The only thing in a city that can affect the design mood of that city is the city planning dept, zoning, etc. Gov't related. But as I said, where you work shouldn't make a difference on the interesting factor since most large firms doing prominent buildings are national, if not international. Single family homes may be another thing but eccentric people for those jobs can be found in any city.
Now ranking a city based on recreation, night life, culture, etc. That's a different story. If it wasn't for Chicago, Illinois would be no different from Kansas. It's flat farmland and quite boring. Then again, you'd never know it walking the streets of Chicago.
there was a PBS series back when we were living there called "chicago: city of the century" or something like that. it was incredible. but chicago really is/was a city of the 20th century, not the 21st. and more importantly, it was a city of the 19th century, a city that epitomized the late industrial revolution in the US.
part of the problem in chicago is as LiG said: the architecture schools are not attracting the kind of revolutionaries that used to flock to chicago.
of course, florence helped spark the renaissance but nothing much from there since. the revolutions of the world are born in the periphery and sustained in the center. sorry, chicago, but you were not nor are not in the center.
well i'm not saying that people should leave chicago, but my original post was in response to someone saying that the environment of chicago is far better than some other places, and in my experience that isn't necessarily so. chicago happens to be one of my favorite cities, and i'm sure some people leave every city because of their jobs, but my overall feeling of the architectural climate of chicago is that it just isn't as cutting edge as phoenix. that said, i think phx is still riding on some ideas and issues that, while interesting 10 years ago, have probably lost their reference today, and that i think the so-called "desert modern" architecture is losing its rigor and developing into a style. but what is chicago known for? what is chicago's great contribution to architecture culture in the last 50 years? i don't agree at all with you that governments are the only thing capable of affecting the mood of a city. cities have cultures like everywhere else; chicago is probably the most family-oriented big city in the country. it is conservative. i would argue that detroit is more liberal than chicago. i feel that the environment you work in does matter, be it your office, the town you are in, or the culture you are amongst. all of those things affect your general quality of life, and how easy it is to get up and go to work in the morning. as for me, i've worked on "national and international" projects before, but in my experience the local architecture culture can affect the internal mood of the firm, and thus much of the work that comes out of such a firm, regardless of where it ends up in the country, is in some sense a product of the environment of it's origin.
should architecture reflect its city...or the city reflect its architecture?
you see something like manhattan with the role its buildings with their density and height do have an effect on the people of NYC and same with LA... but you could say it is an effect of the weather (ie the south...slower) or the people...types, ethnicities, number, etc.
a city is an amazing organism with its hundreds of dynamic parts. i would love chicago to have an architecture completely distinct from different areas even in ILLINOIS!
what i am noticing more and more is my city in the south to have elements that are "every city". afterall we are exporting our suburbs and suburban culture to areas all over the WORLD!
part of it is that we as a profession are lazy in really understanding a place. we just want to create the next great thing!!
I think Chicago gets known a lot for its giant SOM/RTKL/Gensler... type of firms with large corporate clients - which limits what people expect to see when they think architecture in Chicago. Plus, lets face it, there's no publishers here. A quirky building in Brooklyn has a better shot of getting its young architect attention there more than anywhere else because its where all the "hip" publishers are. I am not taking a swipe at NYC, (okay, maybe a little) I think Chicago (and a lot of other towns) need to promote locally more - to the average buisness/homeowner and not just the "trade" either. This has to come from within and I just don't see that attitude.
Now, as far as people on the coasts taking notice, unless its a "Big Name Architect"(TM) a lot of those people whose job it is to promote architecture aren't going to come to flyover country - and the people in the heartland should stop waiting for them to arrive and do it themselves.
Here in Chicago we have have a show Hello Beautiful supposedly dedicated to the local art and architecture scene in chicago - but his entries on Louis Sullivan or Millenium Park easily outnumber his highlighting of young up-and-coming architects in the area - to my memory at least. Its this sort of thing which is frustrating about this town - its not that we don't have good fresh architecture here - its just that you'd never know it if you did. I don't think Chicago needs the attitude of the coasts which says its not real until its been in the NYT/TV/Record... but, at least for the local Chicagoan, we need to be aware that not only Chicago Architecture not die with Wright, its still alive, well and there for the taking.
...is: boring
TED, you got a reference? or are you the well known architect?
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