Posted Aug 4, 2019, 2:41 PM
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Urbane observer
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 4,388
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Tried to post in the appropriate thread, but I guess on SSP once the construction crane comes down, no further comment is invited.
Blair Kamin's review of One Bennett Park in today's Tribune:
A celebrated New Yorker’s new Chicago tower: The height of urban living, but not the peak of skyscraper style
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Seen through that clarifying lens, One Bennett Park, the first Chicago high-rise of celebrated New York architect Robert A.M. Stern, emerges as a mixed bag. This tradition-minded tower is easily superior to its mediocre modernist neighbors. It also comes with a prized amenity, a revamped pocket park, and some exquisite interiors. But the tower doesn’t match the skyline elan of the Art Deco and classically influenced skyscrapers that inspired it. It’s a case study in how difficult it can be, even for the most skillful of architects, to transform the designs of the past into a compelling new synthesis.
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Owing to the presence of an underground garage beneath the aforementioned park, there is no hulking parking garage podium to blight the sidewalks. The tower comes straight down to the surrounding sidewalks and does much to enliven them with precisely honed, chamfered arcades of limestone as well as gracefully linear Art Deco decoration. Motor courts for the apartment and condo entrances (the former on the small street called Peshtigo Court, the latter on Grand) are a pleasure to behold even if you don’t own a Rolls-Royce to pull into them.
Higher up, though, the architecture is a disappointment, and not simply because of the materials.
While the broad outlines are solid — a mountain-like massing achieved by notched corners and setbacks that creates a kind of campanile for the area west of Navy Pier — God is not in several of the details. Stacks of dark metal window surrounds strive to create powerful vertical lines, but they resemble skin blotches. Between the surrounds, precast concrete panels bulge outward, a cosmetic visual trick. The overall effect is leaden instead of soaring, mannered rather than direct — a grid of windows tarted up with awkward applique.
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