CHICAGO | Essex on the Park | 607 FT | 56 FLOORS

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by r18tdi

Kamin: "A tall order of metal and glass 'meh'"
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...321-story.html

ouch!

Kamin is generally an idiot, totally disagree.

[woodrow]

Kamin is not and idiot and he is not an elitist. I don't agree with everything he says (haven't read this review yet), but his writing kept Daley from building an abysmal victory column at Wacker & Michigan (Roman, or neoclassical - IN ALUMINUM!), he was scathing in his review of the 1st iteration of the Trump tower, which was a bad design, and his Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles about the south lakefront are terrific, and I think pushed forward the discussion about how woefully inadequate access to the Lakefront was. His concerns about Lincoln Yards mirrors what many on this forum have said. He is spot on about City Front, which informs his concern about LY.

Now, he was wrong bout the Lucas Museum and other things issues where I disagree with him.

[PittsburghPA]

Originally Posted by woodrow

Kamin is not and idiot and he is not an elitist. I don't agree with everything he says (haven't read this review yet), but his writing kept Daley from building an abysmal victory column at Wacker & Michigan (Roman, or neoclassical - IN ALUMINUM!), he was scathing in his review of the 1st iteration of the Trump tower, which was a bad design, and his Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles about the south lakefront are terrific, and I think pushed forward the discussion about how woefully inadequate access to the Lakefront was. His concerns about Lincoln Yards mirrors what many on this forum have said. He is spot on about City Front, which informs his concern about LY.

Now, he was wrong bout the Lucas Museum and other things issues where I disagree with him.

Do you have any pictures? I've never seen it.

[woodrow]

I have been looking. Will post when I find. It was just silly, especially in it's execution.

[Steely Dan]

^ is this the early iteration you're thinking of?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by woodrow

Kamin is not and idiot and he is not an elitist. I don't agree with everything he says (haven't read this review yet), but his writing kept Daley from building an abysmal victory column at Wacker & Michigan (Roman, or neoclassical - IN ALUMINUM!), he was scathing in his review of the 1st iteration of the Trump tower, which was a bad design, and his Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles about the south lakefront are terrific, and I think pushed forward the discussion about how woefully inadequate access to the Lakefront was. His concerns about Lincoln Yards mirrors what many on this forum have said. He is spot on about City Front, which informs his concern about LY.

Now, he was wrong bout the Lucas Museum and other things issues where I disagree with him.

agreed.

i don't always agree with kamin, but i am always curious to read his opinions.

[woodrow]

Yes to the Trump. Just so blocky looking. It wasn't horrible, just bad. Smith when back to the drawing board and came up with a much better tower.

I was looking for the victory column, which seems to have been thrown on the ash heap of bad design.

[bhawk66]

Originally Posted by woodrow

Kamin is not and idiot and he is not an elitist. I don't agree with everything he says (haven't read this review yet), but his writing kept Daley from building an abysmal victory column at Wacker & Michigan (Roman, or neoclassical - IN ALUMINUM!), he was scathing in his review of the 1st iteration of the Trump tower, which was a bad design, and his Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles about the south lakefront are terrific, and I think pushed forward the discussion about how woefully inadequate access to the Lakefront was. His concerns about Lincoln Yards mirrors what many on this forum have said. He is spot on about City Front, which informs his concern about LY.

Now, he was wrong bout the Lucas Museum and other things issues where I disagree with him.

Agreed with this. He'd done this city a great service. Like others have said, I don't always agree with him, like his latest review of the ORD finalists' entries. His reasoning was a bit simplistic, imo, considering the complexities.

Sometimes his reviews do come across as a bit "pompous" but often times I think he was just in a "cranky" mood and took it out in his column.

[Suiram]

I think Kamin's problem is likely his required volume of content. He has certainly created some well crafted pieces and provided a valuable critical contribution. But maybe he just needs to create too much filler which winds up like hot takes.

He's like one of those talking heads on ESPN. Could be good for valuable insight if given weeks, months to think and consider it. But having to go on TV every night leads to drivel.

On parking podiums, I think we all have to accept basement parking is impractical for now. I wonder if a more practical incentive might be to encourage wrapped parking like 465 N park. Obviously not every site is big enough to be practical, but you could provide a simple zoning incentive like excluding any wrap from the FAR. Obviously that could be abused in theory (I dont think the obvious abuse would pencil...eg, 40 stories of parking wrapped in units).

Actually you could do quite a few games. Include 1st floor parking in FAR (or Double the value), exclude any useable space on say 2 through 5 that wraps parking. Or even the simplest would be to include above ground parking in FAR which would make developers think harder about how much parking they need and what the cost of going underground is.

[chicagodeckerdude]

Ive never been a huge fan of the green glass myself...but that's just something I don't enjoy that much. I do like that original design better. But that's what is cool about architecture....everyone sees it their own way...just like musical tastes are unique to each individual

[Via Chicago]

also, its silly to suggest all Kamin does is complain or that hes just some ivory tower curmudgeon. he has plenty of glowing reviews for things he thinks were executed well. those just dont get the same sort of traction here. i agree with him and his opinions far more than i dissent.

frankly, our city is exceedingly lucky it has a full time architecture critic with a large mouthpiece at all to keep these sorts of topics in the public discourse. and to me thats far more valuable than the actual opinion on A vs B.

[spyguy]

Erik Wolf / flickr

[RedCorsair87]

^Is that NYC or Chicago? Love it! More like this please. Maybe in an orange glass