Goodbye Chicago

Our short time in Chicago came to an end all too quickly. It has been a fascinating weekend, from that first impression of the city approaching on the CTA blue line from O’Hare airport to the loop, where we stayed. Although our focus was very much on architecture there is much more to the city and we only really scratched the surface there.

Beyond the architecture, we had a fantastic visit to the Museum of Science and Technology. There are so many incredible exhibits in that place, starting with an exquisite streamlined diesel powered Pioneer Zephyr train, also known as the Silver Streak, in the entrance hall.

The highlight of our visit was the coal mine tour, the longest standing exhibit in the museum, first installed in 1933. The interactive coal mine tour involves a miner’s lift, a walk through tunnels, a safety lamp demo, train ride, and a demo of coal mining machines. You completely forget that you are still inside a museum and it feels like you have somehow been transported into a mine. It’s one of the coolest tours I have ever enjoyed in a museum.

One of the machines demonstrated during our coal mine tour

Other exhibits included a charming Swiss Jolly Ball, a giant mechanical pinball that transfixed all the kids that approached; the striking sight of U-Boat 505 in its hangar surrounded by a series of panels that recount the fascinating story of how the US executed their plan to capture a u-boat; the Aurora 7 spacecraft; a marvellous model railroad; and a massive tornado replicator.

There were some pretty incredible art exhibits around the city too. The striking Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor was out of reach, surrounded by construction works until Spring 2024, but we still get a glimpse through the barricades. The Crown fountains, two fountains set 15 metres apart, spewing water from the mouths of faces on their video screens were incredibly fund and quite mesmerising.

The weather was pretty wet for a large part of the trip which presented its own challenges, despite some hairy moments (thinking of the moment where we dodged the rain by ducking into a fast food restaurant only to have some slightly deranged soul come and sit next to us, take some drugs and proceed to stare at us intently throughout as much of our meal that we could stomach before giving up). There were a few scary characters on the “L” as well, such as the chap high on drugs who seemed to be imitating a snake, slithering around one platform. Somehow we made it through unscathed. I think it’s a great city, but you do need to keep your wits about you.

We made it to a couple of restaurants, but our favourite was the State and Lake Chicago Tavern gastropub at the base of our hotel, which served up some stunning octopus and lobster. The Italian-Croatian food of Rose Mary in Fulton Market district of the West Loop served up another meal that impressed us greatly (octopus, cevapi and beef gnocchi were highlights, washed down with a wonderful grapefruit APA). Oh and not to forget, Stan’s donuts, with their stunning sweet treats (and a surprising backstory of how a Los Angeles legend transferred to Illinois).

The flight home was relatively smooth, taking us just north of New York, across the Atlantic and then over Cornwall before flying along the coast up to Portsmouth and up from there. Sadly, once we walked landside we were met with an impressive combination of signal failures on the Elizabeth line and Piccadilly, ensuring a long slow homeward journey. Welcome back to London!

Gallery

Architecture galore

Our exploration of the astonishing architecture of Chicago didn’t end with the Open House Weekend. We enjoyed four marvellous guided tours during our stay in the city.

The tours offered by the Chicago Architecture Centre helped us understand more about the way the city evolved, with the Elevated architecture: Downtown “L” train tour led by docent Steve proving to be a highlight of our trip to Chicago.

The history of the “L” and the buildings that line it proved to be a gob-smacking tale of real estate speculation, politics and a heady mix of bribery and blackmail! Along the way we saw some of the most striking buildings in the city that could be seen from the loop. I’m not sure I would have noticed the unusual triangular prison in the heart of the city (Metropolitan Correctional Center) with its narrow windows without it being pointed out.

One of many wonderful art deco lobbies in Chicago

We also took enjoyed Art deco skyscrapers: The Riverfront tour and got to see inside the lobbies of five buildings. All ended up bankrupt but have survived and now thrive with new uses. One (the Chicago Motor Club building) came close to being demolished relatively recently but now thrives as a Hilton Hampton hotel.

No visit to Chicago would be complete without visiting the urban homes created by the most famous and prolific architect to work in the city – Frank Lloyd Wright. We visited the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio (1889) and followed an audio tour of the area to see some of the other homes he designed. The tour of his home allowed us to appreciate its role as a laboratory of ideas. It was quite amazing to see the way he bought a Steinway piano but to avoid it taking up too much floor space simply cut away part of the wall so only part of the piano sits in the room – the rest overhangs the staircase down to the ground floor!

A tour of the Robie House (1910) gave us further insights into the clever thinking behind this unusual family home, such as the use of an overhang to ensure the house didn’t overheat in the summer. It was very forward thinking for its time, with a three car garage including maintenance pit at a point when folk didn’t yet have family cars. It was sad to hear that after all the love that went to crafting this that the Robie family were only able to live there for one year before they were forced to move after hit financial troubles. It is had to believe there was once a threat to demolish this.

Tiffany glass dome in the Preston Bradley Hall (Chicago Cultural Centre)

Besides this, we got to see a few other marvellous buildings that are open to the public in Chicago – including the Rookery Building (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1888); the Chicago Cultural Centre (Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, 1897), formerly the Chicago Public Library, which houses a Civil War memorial and a beautiful Tiffany dome; the grand lobby of the Old Chicago Main Post Office (D. H. Burnham & Company/Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, 1921); and Chicago Union Station (/Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, 1909).

It is well worth making a stop at the Chicago Architecture Centre to understand the evolution of the city and how the three day long fire of 1871 wiped out 18,000 buildings and changed the course of development in the city.

Whatever you choose to do in Chicago you will never be too far away from an architectural marvel. What’s not to like about that!?

Gallery

More Open House Chicago

Our second day exploring the city with Open House Chicago saw us combine more Downtown sites with those of the Near Northside.

First up, one of the most iconic buildings in the city, the Wrigley Building, to see the architectural practice of Perkins & Will which is located in the highest floors of the north tower (1924). Fascinating to see the amount of space they have in that tower, complete with stunning views out onto their terrace and over the neighbouring buildings. It was great to get an insight into the way a modern architectural practice works, including live 3D printing, and to see their impressive kitchen/lounge. It certainly felt like a space geared up for collaboration in a way that many traditional spaces are not.

The view from 333 South Wabash

In the afternoon we got some more high level views from office blocks that were still under construction. The first, at 333 South Wabash gave us the chance to walk around an unfinished 19th floor (bare concrete) and then at 320 Canal Street South we had a similar experience on the 44th floor with some particularly stunning views of the tangle of road systems running through the city and a sizeable rail yard. Someone explained that the whole building had been let so we were lucky to get this opportunity before the interiors were fitted out as this simply wouldn’t be possible once tenants had moved in.

In addition to this, we visited three very different churches – Christ the Saviour Orthodox Church, St James Episcopal Cathedral (1857) and the Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist (1968). Finally, we got to explore another modern office block at 540 W. Madison and enjoy the very tasty cookies they were giving out to everyone!

This weekend has exceeded every expectation about how much we could fit in – and just how amazing these buildings would be. Thank you to all the sites involved, the volunteers and to the organisers at the Chicago Architecture Centre for conjuring up such a wonderful celebration of architecture.

Gallery

Open House Chicago

The Open House festival in London has encouraged the development of similar events in over 45 cities around the world since its launch in 1992, including Chicago. It has long been on my wish list to make a trip to experience Open House in a city renowned for its extraordinary architecture.

Open House Chicago has been running since 2011, organized by the wonderful Chicago Architecture Centre, opening up access to buildings across 30 neighbourhoods. 170 sites participated this year and we were there to get a look at what the festival had to offer.

As Open House Chicago newbies we focused on the buildings in downtown Chicago for our first day, perhaps assisted by a morning of heavy rain which meant that the long queues that we had been led to expect at some of the most popular sites never built up. Not often that you get to be thankful for a thorough drenching, but I think this may be that rare occasion!

The Great Hall in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Our day started with a trio of buildings in close proximity to each other. First up, the Chicago Board Of Trade Building, an art deco skyscraper completed in 1930 which features a gorgeous three storey lobby dressed in black and white marble and an empty vault with room for 20,000 safety deposit boxes. Next up, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, constructed 1921-22, with a stunning Great Hall (restored in 2020) at its heart that leaves you feeling like you have just entered a Greek temple. Directly opposite, a walking tour of the Wintrust Building (constructed 1924) takes you up an escalator into a jaw dropping Grand Banking Hall, lined with 28 columns, topped with stunning murals by Jules Guerin and all surrounded by absolutely tons of marble. An overdose of architectural bling.

The next stop on our wanders was the First Union Methodist Church in the Chicago Temple Building. No ordinary church, this one is a 173 metre tall skyscraper that was the tallest building in Chicago from 1924 until 1930. For Open House you could visit their first-floor sanctuary, a space in the gothic style that seats about 500 people. The chapel has the most wonderful stained glass, including some panels that depict the early skyscrapers of Chicago. There is another, even more extraordinary chapel, known as the Sky Chapel, located in the spire that tops the skyscraper but that was not open during Open House.

A view over Millennium Park from One Pru

After this, a complete change of scene brought us to One Pru (1955), the first skyscraper built in the city since the depression. A rooftop viewpoint terrace at the top of the building gives a stunning and rather unusual view over Millennium Park and the skyscrapers of Chicago. Dog owners among the employees have the ability to use a wooftop terrace!

One of the pleasures of a weekend like this is spotting the Open House signage and going off-piste to visit a building that you hadn’t planned on. In this case, we made an ad hoc visit to the Lamar Johnson Collective, an architectural practice in the Jewellers Building. It turned out to be the absolute highlight of our day at Open House Chicago.

Our wonderful guide gave us an absolutely fascinating tour of their offices, explaining the different teams and their spaces – from curtained off rooms where VR headsets can be used to walk clients through options, getting them to “sit” in their new designs, to fabric libraries with clever switches to change the light levels to see the effect through a working day. To top it off, the offices had wonderful views too. A mail chute from the office runs down to a fabulous lobby decorated in marble and gold. As if all this wasn’t enough, we were told that there used to be a car lift here to take cars as high as the 23rd floor! Simply wow…

Other sites visited today included the McCormick Bridgehouse; the rooftop terrace of 1 North Dearborn Street; the Bank Of America Tower; and 150 North Riverside.

If this first day is anything to go by, I would say that Open House Chicago is every bit as fun as the event in London and it’s well worth timing your visit to Chicago to take advantage of this.

Gallery

A skyscraper with ambition (and chunks of history)

It’s hard to know where to start when summing up the many architectural splendours of Chicago but if you had to pick one building that captured the scale of ambition of a growing city it would have to be the Tribune Tower, which was completed in 1925.

The Tribune Tower was the result of an extraordinary architectural competition by the Chicago Tribune newspaper on their 75th anniversary in 1922, seen by many as the greatest architectural competition in history. The brief was not short on ambition, calling for architects to design “a monument of enduring beauty”, “an inspiration and a model for generations of newspaper publishers” and a “beautiful home worthy of the world’s greatest newspaper.” The competition came with a hefty $100,000 prize fund (around $1.8 million dollars in today’s money) with $50,000 set aside for the winning design.

The Tribune Tower

An astonishing 260 entries were received. The lure of the competition saw some of the world’s greatest architects submit entries, including Walter Gropius and Eliel Saarinen. In the end, the winners were New York architects Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, whose practice Hood & Howells would later conjure up NY landmarks like the American Radiator Building and the Rockefeller Center. Their vision of a neo-Gothic skyscraper with flying buttresses was seen by many as a sophisticated adoption of European style but for others it was an anachronism in an age of modernity.

If the architecture impresses from your first glimpse across the Chicago River, there is another reason to be impressed as you get up close. The exterior of the tower (and the various later extensions) provide a remarkable catalogue of world architecture with fragments from around 150 buildings and historic sites that include the Great Pyramid at Giza (2600 BC); the Houses of Parliament; Westminster Abbey; the roman ruins at Leptis Magna in Libya; the Mosaic Hall from the Reichs Chancellery in Berlin; the GPO Building in Dublin; and the Sydney Opera House.

The Chicago Times moved out in 2018 and the skyscraper has since been redeveloped into luxury residences with the first tenants moving in during 2021. The pictures on the official website look gorgeous, as they should for properties with an asking price ranging from $700,000 to over $7 million. I think I’ll have to settle for an admiring glance from the outside!

Gallery

Long weekend in Chicago

I have long wanted to visit Chicago to explore the architectural wonders of the city, from the clever open plan homes of Frank Lloyd Wright to the soaring skyscrapers of the city centre. When an opportunity came up to visit the city during the annual running of Open House Chicago I leapt at the chance. So, this is how we found ourselves at Heathrow on a rather miserable morning waiting to board British Airway’s day flight to the city.

Our plane – an A330-900 Neo wet leased from Air Belgium (OO-ABG)

British Airways currently has a shortage of planes, so the plane for our flight today was an A330-900 Neo wet leased from Air Belgium (OO-ABG) with a superb Belgian crew. Our flight was pretty smooth, though we never recovered from delays incurred at Heathrow – reaching our gate at O’Hare International Airport over an hour late (with a flight time just under 9 hours).

On arrival we joined an impressively long queue for immigration, which had overflowed down a few turns of the corridors. It took about 80 minutes to get through, before we were released to catch the transit and take a Blue line CTA train to the city centre. We were grateful that this was the extent of our troubles, having feared far worse from the threat of a US government budget shutdown which could have caused havoc with immigration staffing.

Our plan for the weekend is simple enough. On our first day we will take a Metra Electric train from Millennium Station to 55th/56th/57th Street station, join a tour of the Robie House and then visit the Museum of Science and Industry. In the evening we will drop by the Fine Arts Building for their 125th anniversary celebrations. The next two days will be focused on buildings participating in Open House weekend sights plus a Chicago Architecture Centre downtown “L” train tour. Finally, on our last day we will visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio at Oak Park, then take a Chicago Architecture Centre tour of the art deco buildings on the riverfront. In short, lots and lots of architecture!