[Handro]

Originally Posted by sentinel

I've been doing this for 20 years now, and firmly believe that architecture should be responsive to it's environment; but when that environment is flat, lacking texture, industrial, bitterly cold for half the year, the last thing you want to do is mimic that same apathetic environment in the buildings that surround it. The obsession with Mies that Chicago architecture schools push out is obscene (I'm looking in your specific direction, IIT). His designs are specific to a point in history which rejected ornament because it was seen as something unnecessary and ostentatious. But nothing lasts forever, and it saddens me that this type of overly simplistic design is still revered as sacrosanct in Chicago design circles. It has no merit anymore because it's so watered-down to the point of being a visibly cheap copy. I love the Farnsworth House, I love Crown Hall, and I love the Federal Center, but those are from a past era, and should be left there - economies of scale in terms of building design and construction are not the issue, but a lack of creativity due to being conditioned to see things one way only. I truly wish that home-grown architects in Chicago would grow out of their Mies masturbation fantasies and make unique looking buildings again.

wow I loved reading this. 1000% agree with all points!