- 01 CHICAGO 9 | MARINA CITY: Multiple pairs of parked cars in pie-slice spaces
This gallery continues a theme of square format black and white images exploring the structure and fenestration of Chicago architecture. Rectangular formats in monochrome and colour are displayed in other galleries. My boyhood photography used a box camera and 120 film developed and contact printed by the town photographer in the darkroom behind his shop: that fascination survives. My formal grid compositions, the use of angled camera and a liking for strong diagonals are evident here. The further exploration and elaboration of architectural geometry can be seen in the archistract and abstraction galleries.
- 02 CHICAGO 9 | MARINA CITY: Concrete structure, cars and a gently waving Stars and stripes
I’ve been most fortunate to make more than one visit to Chicago even though each has been but a few days. Its architecture exerts a strong attraction and a ready response in image making. A life-long interest in using hands and mind to make things began with a mix of gardening, designing and making working models and a wide ranging interest in design and engineering. Sculpture, ceramics and abstract painting later emerged to extend the mix. Photography was largely a means of record until the first years of the new millennium.
- 03 CHICAGO 9 | EAST BENTON PLACE: Rear elevation of 168 Michigan Avenue
The majority of my Chicago images are of contemporary buildings but if I ever return I’d like to look at earlier structures from the turn of the twentieth century. Perversely, this is a rear view of a 1916 building at 168 Michigan recorded initially for the combination of frieze, façade and fire escape. The front elevation was in poor condition but is now (2016) undergoing what I have read as a restoration of the glazed terra cotta cladding and a rejuvenation and upward extension of the main structure. I would like to see the finished craftsmanship and include it as part of a study of its peers.
- 04 CHICAGO 9 | Harbour Point Tower, Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates 1975
Chicago is remarkably easy to explore on foot and whilst some of my routes were planned to link particular buildings many involved a favourite ‘image making by discovery’ approach. This can be successful but sometimes so distracting that I later realise that my initial quest has not been achieved. In this building and many others I like the combination of a strict structural geometry punctuated by the interventions of random details. In this building it’s the blinds drawn to different levels and in the earlier Marina City images it’s the vagaries of people parking and removing their cars.
- 05 CHICAGO 9 | LAKE SHORE EAST PARK Looking east to variations in apartment block facades
Intermittent visits to Chicago amaze when one finds that a building that was there last time has gone to be replaced by something new, under construction or erected in an amazingly short time. This area near Lake Michigan is a good example of very major changes I’ve walked through. It’s a pleasant park large enough in which to stand well away from the surrounding buildings and offering views of the architectural fragments from Michigan Avenue and the Loop beyond. The juxtaposition of solid structure, geometric voids and the irregularity of abstract reflections in rectangular glazing attracted attention.
- 06 CHICAGO 9 | SWISSOTEL BUILDING Façade reflections
Here, the almost square fenestration in two shades of blue offered contrasts of light and dark in the reflections of Sheraton Grand Hotel set on the other bank of the Chicago River, order framing disorder. Other reflection images from the city appear in other Chicago galleries whilst a wider collection appears in REFLECTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE. Extensive use of glass in this particular city offers great scope for reflection hunting and composition but I failed explore it in depth.
- 07 CHICAGO 9 | AQUA TOWER Detail showing shape variations floor-by-floor akin to rock strata
The 82 storey Aqua Building was designed by Studio Gang Architects who commented: “Its powerful form suggests the limestone outcroppings and geological forces that shaped the Great Lakes Region.” Each uniquely shaped concrete balcony is a floor extension from an otherwise conventional rectangular planform tower. Under clear skies the seemingly blue glazing contrast with the changing undulations of each floor and the shadows they cast.
- 08 CHICAGO 9 | PRITZKER PAVILION Exterior perspective with lighting equipment and its supports
Years ago and equipped with an elderly 35mm film camera I visited the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Bilbao with architecture in mind. Antoni Gaudi and his contemporaries in the former and Frank Gehry in the latter were my focus of interest. Book photographs of the Spanish architect’s buildings had fascinated me for decades and physically walking in and around them was a dream realised. Gehry’s ‘Guggenheim’ in Bilbao did not disappoint although a desired exploration of his Los Angeles concert hall seems increasingly remote: at least I’ve seen the Pritzker Pavilion and his EMP building in Seattle.
- 09 CHICAGO 9 | SPERTUS INSTITUTE OF JEWISH STUDIES South Michigan Avenue
This 2007 building by architects Kruerck & Sexton is a completely new structure inserted into the long architectural façade of Michigan Avenue. In form and construction it’s very much a twenty-first century design created in harmonious contrast with earlier neighbours. The facetted window wall façade has over 700 panes of almost clear glass with most of them cut uniquely to shape. Its framing seems minimal in weight and the multiple glass planes carry a constantly changing interplay of reflected light that I wanted to enhance in photographs. This upward viewpoint is from just outside its entrance doors.
- 10 CHICAGO 9 | SPERTUS INSTITUTE OF JEWISH STUDIES
The public interior volumes are spacious and brightly lit. The crystalline exterior forms are echoed in some of the interior structures and fittings. A 2010 refit of the adjacent Columbia College building also included a flat floating glass façade, a detail of which is recorded in IMAGE10 of gallery CHICAGO 7. In my imagination a future visit to the city might include a project to record a square detail from each individual building on the west side of the Avenue south from the Chicago River until time, stamina and light expired. It’s a more likely reality that such a walk will be completed online without a camera.
- 11 CHICAGO 9 | LAKE SHORE EAST PARK Zig-zag walkway to the west with towers beyond
I recall that the fresh white ribbed concrete walls enclosing this walkway ramp were high enough to entirely screen shorter walkers. The seemingly disembodied heads of taller pedestrians slid steadily along its rim. From a choice of images this headless version emerged as number one, its more naturally lit tones standing out from the remaining high contrast photographs.
- 12 CHICAGO 9 | AON CENTER Facade detail, window mullions and corner structural detail
The height and bulk of the Aon Center behind its ribbed facades dominates the skyline north of Grant Park. A long parade of other tall structures links it to the Lake Michigan waterfront.
- 13 CHICAGO 9 | HYATT CENTER Silvered metal and glass in flush facades
This is but a fragment from the tall and elegant form of the Hyatt Center recorded in a more expansive view in IMAGE 10 in the gallery CHICAGO 5. Its satin metal and flush glasswork enhances the contrast with its more sharply rectilinear neighbours.
- 14 CHICAGO 9 | 1 SOUTH WACKER DRIVE + HYATT CENTRE Contrasting architectural styles
This is a crop from IMAGE 09 in gallery CHICAGO 5 shot originally to contrast the forms and details of these adjacent buildings.
- 15 CHICAGO 9 | PARKVIEW CONDOMINIUMS Detail from upper floors of these 47 storeys
Constructed on a basically rectangular ground plan the actual structure seems a combination of two contrasting conjoined forms most evident in these upper floors. Its blue-green glazing is punctuated by orange tan details such as the balconies.
- 16 CHICAGO 9 | BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD TOWER AND 340 ON THE PARK
Built in two phases and completed in 2010, the 57 storey Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower is the headquarters of a major health corporation. The adjacent 340 on the Park building of 2007 accommodates residential apartments into its 64 floors. The contrast in structural details appealed.
- 17 CHICAGO 9 | VIEW SOUTH ACROSS THE CHICAGO RIVER FROM THE MERCHANDISE MART
I’d been walking on the west bank of the river and turned on to the Kinzie Bridge to return to the gardens and riverside walk fronting the Merchandise Mart building. The late afternoon light was beginning to fade as I photographed some of the massed buildings to the south including this and the final image in the set. This is one of the many Chicago themes I’d like to have explored in greater depth. The variations in architectural forms, fenestration and materials under rapidly changing evening light fascinate.
- 18 CHICAGO 9 | VIEW SOUTH ACROSS THE CHICAGO RIVER FROM THE MERCHANDISE MART
This was one of the last shots in a long and active walking day. I felt tired and wanted something to eat and a little time to relax before an evening walk in the city streets after dark. Hindsight suggests that the meal should have been delayed a little longer and that time saved should have been devoted to wielding the camera for just a few more frames. These are amongst the last images I found in Chicago. Climate change and my own advancing years make this visit my last but more earlier photographs will slowly be added to TJI.