Posted Jun 14, 2009, 5:52 PM
|
|
BANNED
|
|
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Pungent Onion, Illinois
Posts: 8,423
|
|
^^^ Those two buildings are by Loyola Water Tower Campus on Pearson between State and Wabash. The one on the left has some old sounding name that I can't remember at the moment, but houses Loyola's school of education offices or something (I am 90% certain that they are going to tear that building down for the new business school which makes me sad). The one on the right is not owned by Loyola, but completely surrounded by Loyola Property. The owner is a holdout and for good reason: Honte gave me an interesting history on it before his recent disappearence. I hope Honte doesn't mind me sharing the back story to the building that he sent me in a PM. The house is called "Speyer House".
Honte:
Quote:
As I mentioned in the thread, the house was done in 1928 by Sol Kogan. If you don't know his work, please go check out the artist enclave in Old Town on Burton Street. It's one of my favorite places in the city, where artists and a few architects "took over" the block and transformed it by hand into something extraordinary. Kogan worked with the noted artist Edgar Miller over there, and he very well might have done the same on Pearson Street.
Most of the information I have on the building is coming from John Vinci's excellent monograph on Speyer, which was self-published and done basically because Vinci is a great person. I did, however, verify though my independent research that Kogan was the architect. I also learned that the building was a studio on the top floor, and stables on the bottom.
The area surrounding this building, as I am sure you know, was once called "Tower Town" (after the Water Tower) and was the city's principal arts enclave. While I don't know the history of this building completely, I would guess, given Kogan's participation and the progressive look of the building, that it has a direct link back to this part of the city's history. As such, it is probably the only reminder left in Chicago that Tower Town ever even existed.
A. James Speyer was Mies van der Rohe's first grad student. He literally followed Mies into Chicago and asked to work with him. He went on to become a great architect, of major importance to the 2nd Chicago School of architecture, as is very wonderfully explained in Vinci's book. His career as an architect was short-lived, however, because he was offered a job at the Art Institute, becoming their chief curator of Contemporary Art in 1961. He is responsible for obtaining a lot of the amazing pieces that will be housed in the new Piano wing. While he was an architect, he produced some of the earliest and most beautiful Miesian homes in Chicago, which to be precise only number 3. It's worth noting that all of these homes are, remarkably, still standing (considering that Highland Park has no landmarking ordinance, and nearly everything under 5000 sq ft seems destined for the dumpsite in that suburb). I have photographs and addresses if you ever want to learn more, or if you need them to show to anyone at Loyola.
Speyer bought the house on Pearson in 1965. His work is mostly found on the inside, but now that Loyola has demoed the buildings one block north, you can see some of the cool parts he added to the back of the building, as well as the partial 3rd floor he added. These small additions, ironically, are the only exterior architecture within Chicago city limits by one of its most important early Modernists.
|
The building is currently owned by someone with a deep appreciation of its architectural and historical worth who has basically vowed to never sell it to Loyola, even if it becomes completely surrounded by highrises.
Here's an article on some of Kogan's other work that Honte referenced in Old Town:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/nest08/granddaddies/
|
Prev
new update video
Linear Mode
