^^^ Also, most of the buildings from the World's Fair weren't torn down, the burnt down in a catastrophic fire.
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Originally Posted by Yankee
I'd rather have both. I don't understand why they demolished all those buildings, including the ones the previous 2 posters mentioned, as well as all the neoclassical buildings from the World Columbian Exposition, and that's just Chicago. It's not like Chicago was running out of space. Why couldn't they have kept those in a sort of a historic core and constructed all the new skyscrapers adjacent to them or in between. In NYC for instance, after the historic preservation laws went into effect, you have old neoclassical short buildings in midtown and downtown mixed in with new skyscrapers and it doesn't look bad at all. I'm sure they could have found a use for the old federal building, someone would have wanted it for sure. And I don't think it's all that pedestrian unfriendly, certainly less so than some newer buildings in Chicago where there's literally nothing but a wall there for pedestrians to see and a tall one too followed but boring windows higher up. At least this building had ornamentation on a more human scale and the entrances were beautiful as well, not to mention the magnificent rotunda. They actually spent $2 million on ornamentation both inside and out in 1898-1905 when the building was constructed - that's over 50 million in 2009 dollars.
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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?