CHICAGO | Boom rundown - everything over 12 floors. v5

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by Loopy

I agree, but it is was the plan that failed, in most cases, not the buildings themselves. The biggest failure of thinking in this era was that urban dwellers needed "light air and serenity", while ignoring their real needs for community and sense of place.

I totally agree. Actually, I think that's what I wrote: the architecture is the only redeeming feature of that site; everything else is super, super lame.

Originally Posted by VivaLFuego

The notion that superblocks are inherently hostile to pedestrian activity is the result of unqualified pols thinking they are savvy to urban planning concerns (yes, you, Ald. Preckwinkle). I could list off probably a dozen renewal developments in New York City that obliterate the idea; if anything, a well-designed superblock would eliminate car/pedestrian conflicts, and thus be more pedestrian friendly. The urban layout and architecture are not what makes the Lake Meadows/Prairie Shore area a wasteland of pedestrianism; it is the suburban shopping center (hence hurting the chance for economic activity, the primary trip generator, to be made on foot) and large resident parking fields (which waste alot of space). Fix the units/acres ratio without repeating the same mistakes of the past in demolishing a healthy community of mixed income, mixed background residents. Any "replacement" community, in today's economic environment, would be a mundane blend of the upper income and the few scorned invidividuals living in subsidized units, whose construction further drove up the "market-rate" units thereby making those even more exclusive. Lake Meadows is a truly diverse development of mixed income, the sort of which planners yearn for, with 50 years of character and history. Wiping the slate clean wouldn't be any better than what they did in the '50s, in my opinion.

This plan is a complete travesty.

This is bullshit. Whenever you isolate a tall and severe structure in the middle of a sparsely landscaped "park" you create a terrible urban experience that minimizes human interactions. If they're successful in Manhattan it's only because housing demand is so great that people would live in just about anything to be there. (Plus, I think many of the urban renewal developments are denser than LM.) Can you sincerely tell me that, given the option, someone would actually choose to live in Boston's West End over the North End, South End or Beacon Hill?

I agree that the architecture is boss and that they would ideally preserve and incorporate that into a new plan but as for maintaining the integrity of the super block... I fail to see how that would be anything but historicism at work. Or, from the sound of it, Marxism...?

[BVictor1]

Originally Posted by honte

^ What if IIT had not had a malicious policy of literally telling incoming freshmen not to go east or south of the school?

Really? They never told me that. Maybe it was because I'm black

[the urban politician]

I would like to add one more comment to address all of our "lets protect the historic integrity of towers in a park" friends.

I live, right now, in a tower-in-a park style development. I live in one of three buildings that form a ring, with building entrances facing a central drive/green courtyerad instead of the street. What faces the street? A giant brick wall and the garbage dump. What else faces the street? The maintanance entrance.

Guess what has happened? Virtually nobody uses the main entrance to the buildings. The maintanance entrance has become the de facto entrance to my building. And the inner courtyard within my ring of buildings? Bereft of life. How do I describe the sidewalks immediately outside my building? How about "horrible pedestrian experience."

I guess it's a good thing that I have no training whatsoever in architecture, because sometimes I think that certain architects are too immersed in their profession to even relate to human beings. To some, it's all about wow-ing eachother and creating eye-catching designs instead of actually paying attention to how people like to live and function. This is not an attack on architects in particular, BTW, because I actually think that professionals in most fields (including my own) lose touch with how the general population views their topic of expertise.

But lets reevaluate what the architects of my saavy, 48 year old complex simply disregarded: people like SHORT walks to places. We don't like giant, blank walls on our streets. Since we all have to go to our local shops to run daily errands, it makes more sense to place the main entrance of the building along the sidewalk, not facing an interior courtyard.
The architectural format (towers in a park) that some of you here want to preserve simply ignored the pedestrian, and being that regard for the pedestrian is becoming the norm again, I have a hard time understanding how some of the complexes built during that anti-pedestrian craze of the 1950's-1960s can survive without a serious reconfiguration of what some of you believe to be their cherished way of relating to the city around them.

BTW, perhaps if this discussion is going to continue, we can move it to the State of Chicago Architecture thread?

[honte]

^ It's an interesting comment, but the towers at Lake Meadows do not function like this. Some of the oldest ones open on to parking lots, but most have street-fronting entrances. Some actually have two direct connections to the street system, front and back.

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

This is bullshit. Whenever you isolate a tall and severe structure in the middle of a sparsely landscaped "park" you create a terrible urban experience that minimizes human interactions. If they're successful in Manhattan it's only because housing demand is so great that people would live in just about anything to be there. (Plus, I think many of the urban renewal developments are denser than LM.) Can you sincerely tell me that, given the option, someone would actually choose to live in the West End over the North End, South End or Beacon Hill?

I agree that the architecture is boss and that they would ideally preserve and incorporate that into a new plan but as for maintaining the integrity of the super block... I fail to see how that would be anything but historicism at work. Or, from the sound of it, Marxism...?

So fill in the wasted space (parking fields, unused green space) with mixed-use infill. Like I said, the superblock isn't the problem, it's the orientation of retail and other economic generators in relation to their surroundings. I also live in a towers-in-the-park-renewal-project and pedestrian activity around here is great. I wouldn't build the exact same thing now (I would have more accessible retail, for example), but there's no reason such modernist renewal projects can't have pedestrian vibrancy. Admittedly, much of the pedestrian activity occurs in the older, dense retail areas nearby (nod to the urban pol), but if anything, this proves my point that the orientation of the land uses generating economic activity (i.e. retail/commercial), rather than the residential, are a more important determinant of pedestrian activity.

Update, don't demolish and wipe the slate clean, destroying the neighborhood character in the process. I never said the superblock must be maintained; rather, I was challenging the notion that the superblock must be destroyed and the grid reinstated in order to have pedestrian activity. That is the real bull. By all means, tweak the site plan substantially, but don't bulldoze thousands of existing market-rate mixed-income housing units solely out of obsession with eliminating awful superblocks. And that's not even getting into the architectural merits and importance of several of the structures.

[VivaLFuego]

Originally Posted by BVictor1

Really? They never told me that. Maybe it was because I'm black

That was more than a few years ago (e.g. pre-mid-1990s).

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by honte

^ It's an interesting comment, but the towers at Lake Meadows do not function like this. Some of the oldest ones open on to parking lots, but most have street-fronting entrances. Some actually have two direct connections to the street system, front and back.

Honte, I've never visited the site but judging from the pictures posted here and the satellite image from Google maps this seems to be a huge exaggeration. I count at least five structures -- three of the mid-rises in the southeast quadrant and two of the high-rises in the northwest one -- that are insulated either by greenspace or parking lots.

[honte]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

Honte, I've never visited the site but judging from the pictures posted here and the satellite image from Google maps this seems to be a huge exaggeration. I count at least five structures -- three of the mid-rises in the southeast quadrant and two of the high-rises in the northwest one -- that are insulated either by greenspace or parking lots.

I guess you'll just have to check it out in person the next time you are in the area. None of the newer "high-rise" towers have parking lot entrances. Some of the older ones, such as the ones with Cottage Grove addresses, have been reworked a bit and do not have the street entrance they were intended to have.

From the Google map, you can see that only three buildings in the whole development open directly onto a parking lot. It might be hard to tell, because in some cases the streets and parking lots kind of merge together a bit in the photo. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ge...2695&spn=0.005364,0.009978&t=h&z=17&om=1 I've never seen an original site plan, so I can't tell you exactly what this was supposed to be like.

In any case, there is none of this "my front door leads nowhere and I have to use the service entrance because the architects were morons" business.

Also, notice that most of the streets in the development are just the vestiges of the street grid. Only a small number are realigned at all. So, the street grid fanatics could have that back while keeping the existing buildings around.

Concerning the "front and back" comment, I guess I have to clarify that. Some of the second-phase towers have Mies-style pass-through lobbies. The back side (very pleasantly, I must say) looks out onto grassy areas. There is an exit there that leads to a path along the side of the building, which connects to the street. It's not a direct connection, but probably only about 120 feet.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by honte

I guess you'll just have to check it out in person the next time you are in the area. None of the newer "high-rise" towers have parking lot entrances. Some of the older ones, such as the ones with Cottage Grove addresses, have been reworked a bit and do not have the street entrance they were intended to have.

From the Google map, you can see that only three buildings in the whole development open directly onto a parking lot. It might be hard to tell, because in some cases the streets and parking lots kind of merge together a bit in the photo. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ge...2695&spn=0.005364,0.009978&t=h&z=17&om=1 I've never seen an original site plan, so I can't tell you exactly what this was supposed to be like.

In any case, there is none of this "my front door leads nowhere and I have to use the service entrance because the architects were morons" business.

Also, notice that most of the streets in the development are just the vestiges of the street grid. Only a small number are realigned at all. So, the street grid fanatics could have that back while keeping the existing buildings around.

Okay. I think I better understand where you're coming from. But these interior streets were not designed with retail in mind; they're supposed to cut through greenspace, like sidewalks in a quadrangle. What good does it do if your building entrance faces a street with no residences or retail? Specifically, I'm looking at the structures along E 32nd St, E 33rd St and the east end of E 33rd Pl.

As far as preserving the street layout versus establishing a grid... look, the architecture here was meant to fit a garden context. That relationship failed. Like I said, I really like the design of these buildings, but only amidst truly urban development. No matter what happens, we all agree that the context must change, even if only with the addition of substantial residential and retail components to the existing street layout. The only value I see in maintaining that layout would be to pay homage to Chicago's (failed) affair with Modern urban planning. Would this add a little quirk and character to the area? For sure. But it's important to remember that, beyond the architecture, there currently is no quirk or character. Just failure.

[aaron38]

In other news, out of curiosity I was purusing the archived boom thread v1, to see old construction photos from before I joined. Didn't see much, not as many digital cameras around 3 years ago.
But I found this one of Lake Shore East from May '04. Quite a change.


(posted by Chicago3rd)

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by wrabbit

I thought that Kamin's article on the Columbian was more or less spot-on. And I'm psyched about Solstice getting a green light.

Agreed. Although wasn't a superb piece (first it was a shorter review), I definitely agree with the main points - in the end it's mediocrity at best and far less than what the site deserves. I especially agree with his point that had the building been first proposed 4 or 5 years after it was, the result would likely have been superior, as it would have been in the post-enlightenment design period for Daley....

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn

There are some caisson cranes on the K Station site. Keep an eye out for that one. I will go by there this weekend to see if we have our first construction start of 2008.

Saw this as well - could pop any day now. Here's a question though about K Station - I remember reading a Kamin piece a while ago how the Planning Dept worked with Fifield to improve the urban design of 353 Des Plaines after the relative failure of Left Bank - this seems to have been mostly manifested in the thinner profile of the building, and possibly how the tower meets the street (certainly not an improvement in aesthetics). After having again been disappointed with the design of these new twin towers (Site A), why can't the city work with the developer and architects to actually improve the aesthetics of these towers as well? (no more "contemporary deco"!!!)

[pip]

Holy Shit!!

[Jaroslaw]

Originally Posted by honte

I guess you'll just have to check it out in person the next time you are in the area. None of the newer "high-rise" towers have parking lot entrances. Some of the older ones, such as the ones with Cottage Grove addresses, have been reworked a bit and do not have the street entrance they were intended to have.

Prairie Shores feature a fence (with one way emergency exits) all along MLK, and I think the Meadows do also. Sure, in that kind of neighborhood, especially 20 years ago, what would you have? But in turn these kinds of fence arrangements contribute to further urban decline.

UP, your point about professionals becoming disconnected from the human world is exactly what I feel. As soon as I hear someone here arguing that some building should be preserved because "it's one of only two projects in Chicago by Joe Morgen, with hints of influence by Mumu Bwabwa, and in turn influencing Enrico Abend...", that's all I need to know. It's like hearing audiophile or oenophile nuts, you just know they're missing the real thing.

[honte]

Originally Posted by Jaroslaw

Prairie Shores feature a fence (with one way emergency exits) all along MLK, and I think the Meadows do also. Sure, in that kind of neighborhood, especially 20 years ago, what would you have? But in turn these kinds of fence arrangements contribute to further urban decline.

You are mistaken. Only certain parts have medium-height, transparent fences. Follow this link, which should bring up a Streetview: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&ti...33,-87.616074&spn=0.010727,0.026994&z=16

I agree that the fences are not the most welcoming thing, but hardly a horrible situation. In fact, the presence of fences in some areas and not having them in others reinforces that the community is permitted to freely access some of the grounds, which I have done many times (yes, I do actually use the parks here).

In any case, if and when the grounds are redeveloped, most of the King Drive frontage would be remade anyway.

[Nowhereman1280]

I have to say if there is one thing that pisses me off as a pedestrian its impermeable fences blocking me from taking a shorter route through some lawn or parking lot.

Regardless of whether or not or how much of Prairie Shores is demolished, any and all fences MUST be removed to reach complete renewal of the area.

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by Jaroslaw

As soon as I hear someone here arguing that some building should be preserved because "it's one of only two projects in Chicago by Joe Morgen, with hints of influence by Mumu Bwabwa, and in turn influencing Enrico Abend...", that's all I need to know. It's like hearing audiophile or oenophile nuts, you just know they're missing the real thing.

Yes - Thank you, that is endlessly annoying...

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by Ch.G, Ch.G

Cities aren't museums; they're first and foremost machines. Architecture and design are meant to enhance their processes; and, if in the course of a city's history an architecture develops that ultimately proves unsuccessful in doing this, then you have to sack it or at least rework it in such a way that it helps not hinders.

With reverence to the "archo-philosopher" planners here, what do you preserve? It seems to me: only the architecture. As for the plan, there's nothing about it that contributes to or helps the day-to-day urban experience. Parks are definitely a good thing, but not when they're designed like this.

Cogent points that all here should keep in mind. Often I feel that some of the more fervent preservationists would rather keep all of the architecture they personally find appealing than have a functioning city and individual neighborhoods. I agree that it seems the only parts worth saving are some of the better buildings themselves in Lake Meadows...

[SamInTheLoop]

Large Hotel Complex Proposed for River North by Friedman. 501 N. Clark, possible multiple buildings and hotel brands, 700+ total rooms, no taller than 23 stories....


http://www.suntimes.com/business/739243,CST-FIN-build14.article

[trvlr70]

Originally Posted by BVictor1

The development, as is, is nothing more than Stateway Gardens with a glass facade treatment.

.

Amen