- 01 CHICAGO 10 | Glazing lattice at LaSalle and Van Buren
This gallery continues the theme of square format black and white photographs exploring architectural geometry and pattern contained in galleries CHICAGO 7, 8 and 9. I used a 120 box camera as a boy, the few images made being processed in the wet darkroom behind a photography shop in my small local town. That shop is long gone but the camera and a few prints survive. Colour was then out of the question and that influence of black and white in a square format persists. This building stands at S. Financial Place and Van Buren.
- 02 CHICAGO 10 | Light reflected from a Lakeshore Park façade
The camera’s image sequence places this façade on East Randolph Street alongside Lakeshore Park but its identity remains elusive. However, my interest lay with the tracery of glazing bars enclosing rectangles of glass reflecting the early morning light streaming in from Lake Michigan. The structure seems more two than three-dimensional, perhaps emphasised by the minimal impact of the framing lattice on modelling form.
- 03 CHICAGO 10 | LAKE SHORE EAST PARK The Lancaster, The Park at Lakeshore East
This maturing park is central to recent residential tower developments between North Columbus Drive and North Lake Shore Drive on the shores of Lake Michigan. Another detail from the same building appears as Image 5 in the CHICAGO 9 Gallery. I was drawn to the tight glazing grid and the reflections it carried, all divided by the stacked balconies with their own internal reflections.
- 04 CHICAGO 10 | A fragment from the Sheraton Hotel reflected in the Swissotel glazing grid
The honeycomb concrete facades of the Sheraton Hotel across the Chicago river are reflected in the glass wall of the Swissotel building set on its south bank. Designed by Harry Weese & Associates it echoes the triangular ground plan of their Federal Bureau of Prisons building shown in IMAGE 13. IMAGES 08 and 11 also feature the Sheraton.
- 05 CHICAGO 10 | Parkview Condominiums façade with balcony details
Constructed on a basically rectangular ground plan the actual structure seems formed from two contrasting conjoined forms most evident in these upper floors. Blue-green glazing is punctuated by orange tan details such as the balcony fronts. A more distant perspective in IMAGE 15 of the CHICAGO 9 gallery shows those design features. This crop isolates a stack of balconies and the junction between the two contrasting forms creating the whole structure.
- 06 CHICAGO 10 | Apartment towers, centred on Parkview Condominiums
The section from the Parkview Condominium is flanked by foreground and background fragments from buildings set on adjacent streets.
- 07 CHICAGO 10 | Three Buildings aligned.
Swisshotel - Harry Weese & Associates 1989 + Three Illinois Centre - Fujikawa, Conterato, Lohan & Associates 1980 + Columbus Plaza – Fujikawa, Conterato, Lohan & Associates 1980 stand beside the Chicgo River. A zoom lens compressed the perspective of these aligned buildings to contain a formal composition.
- 08 CHICAGO 10 | A detail from the Sheraton Chicago Hotel set against facades to the north
The main structure of the Hotel stands on a base several storeys high of which this is a fragment backed by facades of two buildings to the north. The Image 11 shows a wider perspective of the main bulk of the building.
- 09 CHICAGO 10 | A long lens view from the park fronting the Merchandise Mart building
The sunlit building is the Civic Opera House completed in 1929 to the designs of Graham, Anderson, Probst & White. Like an armchair in planform, the two ‘arms’ rise 22 storeys set against the 45 of the main structure. The dark building beyond is one of two towers to the 1980s Chicago Mercantile Exchange Center designed by Fujikawa, Johnson & Associates. It’s a view looking south along the river from the park fronting the Merchandise Mart building.
- 10 CHICAGO 10 | On West Wacker Drive at North Wells Street bridge
This view along West Wacker Drive shows facades above the North Wells Street Bridge over the Chicago River. Its two levels carry the L rails above and city traffic below in linking The Loop with north Chicago. The Merchandise Mart station at its northern end is a good starting point for a circular Loop train tour or two on a Brown Line train, an essential part of a City visit.
- 11 CHICAGO 10 | Sheraton Chicago Hotel in a perspective from across the river
The Sheraton Chicago Hotel is a Post-modern concrete structure by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz & Associates completed in 1992. It’s not my favourite Chicago structure but it does provide a strong contrast in both form and surface relief against its neighbours.
- 12 CHICAGO 10 | A façade detail from the former Four40 building - now 425 South Financial Place
This 1985 Skidmore, Owings and Merrill office tower stands at South LaSalle Street and West Congress Parkway. Housing the Chicago Stock Exchange its lower floors open on to the LaSalle Street Metra train station.
- 13 CHICAGO 10 | FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS façade detail with window slots
Designed by Harry Weese & Associates this building designed to hold 440 prisoners was completed in 1975. This original shuttered surface of the raw poured concrete was later painted. The 5 inch wide upper slit windows admit light to the cells whilst the wider lower versions illuminate offices. Its siting close to the financial centre was controversial but the design was intended to enhance its setting. The triangular planform enables a generous open space at street level on South Federal Street. It also echoes that of the same architect’s Swissotel overlooking the Chicago River close to Lake Michigan.
- 14 CHICAGO 10 | Reliance Building corner glazing and terra-cotta tile details
The prolonged design and construction of the fourteen floor Reliance Building covered the years from 1890 to 1895. The Chicago Architecture Foundation website outlines the initial Burnham and Root designs and their completion by Charles Atwood. The structure is clad in white glazed terra-cotta tiles and features large windows; its elevators and telephones were unusual installations at that time. Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976 it was restored under the ownership of the City Authorities from 1994.
- 15 CHICAGO 10 | Railway Exchange Building, the Santa Fe, on Michigan Avenue: façade detail
This 17 storey office building was completed in 1904 to the designs of Daniel Burnham. Its steel frame is clad in white glazed terra-cotta tiles. Construction was initiated by the Sana Fe Railroad for use as a business clearing house shared with several other railroads.
- 16 CHICAGO 10 | Congress Plaza Hotel building south tower window study
Originally named the Auditorium Annex, the north building was connected by tunnel to Louis Sullivan’s Auditorium Building across Congress Parkway. Built to house visitors to the 1892 Colombian Exposition the Annex was designed by Clinton Warren in a style close to that of its partner. The south tower pictured here was completed in 1907.
- 17 CHICAGO 10 | Peoples Gas light and Coke Building, 122 S Michigan Avenue
The Peoples Gas Light and Coke Building was designed by Daniel Burnham and constructed in 1910/11. The steel frame structure is clad in relief patterned terra cotta tiles which add rich detail surrounding the deep set windows holding dark shadows in this late afternoon shot. The adjacent CHICAGO 11 gallery has three colour details of this building.
- 18 CHICAGO 10 | South La Salle Street structural and window detail
This 37 storey design by Moriyama & Teshima dates from 1986. Its La Salle and Madison Street facades retain the four-floor neo-classical masonry base of the Otis Building completed by Holabird & Roche in 1912. The combination of structural blue aluminium and green tinted glass is unusual but the style of the preserved stonework is a visual link to neighbouring contemporaries. A colour image of a façade section is posted as IMAGE 18 in the CHICAGO 5 gallery.