Quote:
Originally Posted by DecoJim
The buildings for the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893 were temporary structures covered in staff, not limestone or marble. These buildings started looking bad after a few years. The only existing structures are the Art Institute which may have been one of the few buildings built of permanent materials and the Palace of Fine Arts which was later rebuilt as a permanent structure and is now the Museum of Science and Industry (a very good museum too).
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I see, I didn't know that. Well, that makes me feel better, thanks.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
Yes that would be nice, but that's not how cities work. Yes there were some parking lots on the edges of the CBD when Federal Plaza was built, but those lots were there for a reason: because there was no demand for highrises in the middle of what was then a decaying industrial wasteland. The demand for new high rises was in the Loop, N Michigan avenue, and along the north lakefront. What was a crime was the destruction of perfectly good buildings for parking lots or for much smaller, crappier buildings. Think the Masonic Temple or Chicago Stock Exchange.
Also, this is my opinion, but I find the concept of "human scale" to be a load of crap. I mean what human honestly comes to a dense CBD looking for a quaint village feel? That's like going to the mountains so you can feel huge and dominant over nature. Since when do human beings need nice little arches and ornate columns to feel at home? What part of human nature makes people scared and depressed when they see huge steel beams and glass panels? I don't think its innate, I think the public's disdain of these things comes from bad experiences where these materials are used horribly. I think this disdain is where the whole load of "human scale" crap comes from. I mean honestly, if you have a 500' building, how does tacking some finials on top make it less imposing?
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That makes sense. Still, I think they could have found a crappier building to demolish to build the new federal plaza... If the federal building was to magically reappear today I'm sure it would be put to good use. Oh well...
In the end you can't save all the old buildings, and obviously post 1950 most of the money in America has been spent on for and in the suburbs not the major cities, back at the turn of the century it was a very different time when people would spend 50 million in today's dollars on ornamentation, when people lived in and cared about the cities and the government did too through projects like City Beautiful. Hardcore capitalism is great but it sure contributed to the destruction of all these buildings. But that's neither here nor there.
I agree about the human scale thing, I was referring not to the size of the building but about the ornamentation really. It was the wrong term.
This is kind of off-topic, but does anyone know what the newest traditional building in Chicago is? By traditional I mean following neoclassical or art deco or any sort of 1880 to 1950 American architectural style. And I don't mean just having elements of it, I mean a building you'd look and think it was built over 60 years ago. Doesn't have to be a skyscraper just any building. I suppose the main reason I get sad when I read about these lost architectural treasures is because I know nothing like this will ever be built again. I know we shouldn't cling to old styles and I'm a big fan of new skyscrapers in Chicago, NYC, everywhere really, but I wish every now and then we'd restore or rebuild, or build something new in our cities following traditional styles. Especially American neoclassicism IMHO will never look out of style. It's like classical music.