Now, his first Chicago skyscraper, Streeterville’s One Bennett Park, is nearing completion. [...]
“It has a very special site,” he said. “It will be a building that is memorable, I hope. I think it has already made an impression on the skyline. I would describe it as a building that has roots in the skyscrapers of New York in the 1920s and ‘30s, which people generally call Art Deco, but maybe that’s a kind of sloppy term.”
— WTTW
"There are a lot of architects who seem intent on entertaining other architects," Stern says in his WTTW interview. "I would like the respect of my peers, but I would like the public to embrace my buildings."
I like the delicacy and charm of Stern's houses. However, these atributes do not appear in this massive building, which does not seem to add charm or identity to the neighborhood or to the skyline. The window pattern is kind of dull and somewhat decorative; the contrasts among plans and volumes are week and uninspiring. The overall composition seems an arbitrary collage of small, graceless volumes, lacking a sense of proportion. Sorry.
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Hmmm. It doesn't look particularly iconic or impressive on the skyline. The detailing of the top dozen floors looks beautiful, but those are 70 storeys in the sky.
The further away Stern is from NYC, the less effort he makes.
I like that he references NY even though the building is in Chicago, which invented the skyscraper and set the scene for the Art Deco movement.
I like the classical modern / deco references but think he didn't take it far enough. Also the window proportions are wrong, especially at the lower levels, making the building look less massive, more like steel than masonry. Contrast this with the Chrysler or Empire State.
I do prefer it to the egocentric / parametric artitecture nonsense that is the new normal.
Funny, as I am decidedly not a fan of Stern's work.
i agree.
He artfully pasted ten or so hi rise and hi end apartment buildings onto each other. Collage living
From a distance it looks like a vertically distorted rendering of any building in Dallas.
the problem with Stern is he’s a historicist whose work is never as good as his references. Like a McMansion
@ Chemex - that is a perfect summation. He's an inferior copyist.
Not saying this is the best composed building, but why wouldn't modernist work also be classified as historicist? And the comparison to McMansions misses the mark if you actually compare Stern's traditional houses with builder McMansions.
On the flip side, are the countless replicas of the Seagrams tower or every other Corbusian tower block also historicist? I've never understood this bit of mental gymnastics.
Are you familiar with the International Style book put out with the MOMA's show that introduced the style to most Americans? It's a fascinating piece of literature, both distilling many of the European modernist's ideas while buttressing them for the inevitable questioning of Americans not conversant on the cultural forces in Europe that created it.
There is a sad disparity between the ideals of classical modernism (Bauhaus) and the implementation and execution of it (International Style), especially as it developed over time, ending (one hopes) with Gwathmey and Meier. Which makes the International Style historicist. As to Stern's houses, they are pretty much the basis for all McMansions.
Agree that much is historicist towards Classical Modernism, some good (Maki, Berke) much bad. The good is usually more inspired by history, with one foot in the present. Stern is classicist toward old NY, but doesn’t see the forward looking exuberance of it all but instead a paint by numbers. Which is why his own work it mediocre. But he’s the perfect postmodernist — selling an image of the past rather than the craft and reality that made it good. Just like another backwards looking NYer.... and just like McMansions. And much like the classical modern imitators who also do historicist paint by numbers like Hudson Yards and the other blank reflected glass volume design by sq foot.
McUrbanism hell!
Part of the reason for McUrbanism is the design and ornament of historic architecture isn't taught in schools, even though it still appeals to our visual and emotional nature, regardless of technological innovations. When you say Stern's selling an image, we have to accept the fact that many people work with just images even if they can't afford the best materials and craftsmanship. You want better design, both modernist and traditionalist, you have to get off the politics of style and learn the craft of design, something we can all admit was lost when the modernists threw out the baby with the bathwater. Or we can continue with endless partisan warfare while the overall environment continues to suck. Accepting the plurality of our modern society seems to be the only reasonable course, which of course won't endear me with either extreme, but say 'la vie!'
There are a lot of schools that teach the craft of design. The graduates then go out and learn the rough economics of the current developer market and become cynical. And they receive little incentive to push design when there is no popular support to do so -- in media, politics and the lowest common d market.
Stern knows he can't match the style of the past -- because current technology doesn't allow it. Better to try to use the limitations of today's technology in artistic ways. But copying the past always ends up looking cheap. For my money BCJ-type architecture firms are best at bringing craft to today's world.
My experience is that design is very well supported when it creates something that appeal to a buyer, the usual compromises not withstanding. Maybe you need to learn a more practical sense of design that works with rich and poor budgets. Stern can't match the style of the past because his designers aren't up to the task, but curtain wall technology has been around long before the modernists began insisting on bald faced buildings. It will take more than a couple of classical programs to truly bring back the craft of design as practiced since time immemorial, not the pseudo intellectual crap attached to a gizmo design ethos that so often gets mistaken for design.
"Buyers" are idiots, they think featurization is quality. The more stupid shit developers cram into spec houses the better they sell. Hot tubs, complex digital lighting control systems, home theaters, exercise rooms, unreliable high-end appliances, more bathrooms, glitzy materials, elevators, fancy painted trim, branded components, and so on. Smart people buy houses that are small, energy efficient, easily and inexpensively maintained, etc.
You may be right about buyers. The modernists tried to re-engineer human nature, to no avail. As Depeche Mode once said... "People are people... "
David, shouldn't you ask Stern for a check? It's a tower after all ;)
... and hopefully the last
I like the delicacy and charm of Stern's houses. However, these atributes do not appear in this massive building, which does not seem to add charm or identity to the neighborhood or to the skyline. The window pattern is kind of dull and somewhat decorative; the contrasts among plans and volumes are week and uninspiring. The overall composition seems an arbitrary collage of small, graceless volumes, lacking a sense of proportion. Sorry.
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