Quote:
Originally Posted by Hayward
I think with the exception of some updates to more newish building on Michigan ave the street will be frozen in place for awhile. So don't expect anything groundbreaking soon. I'm a little more upset right now with my own street turning into an outdoor shopping mall with these consistent storefront designs. The Esquire beast is getting huge. The new addition should have been totally different architecture.
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If that green wall planned for the InterContinental goes through and is as successful as the renderings envision, it will have a dramatic effect on the Michigan Avenue pedestrian experience; it could even be a destination in its own right.
Concerning the Burberry store, I'm ambivalent. I agree with Mr. Downtown that this isn't the "innovative" architecture for which we usually reserve the kind of praise that's already been lavished on it. Rather, Burberry used a prototype that was slightly reworked to meet some of the needs of the site. (See their Beijing store.)
As far as this approach goes, it's not a bad design at all, especially compared to, for example, Best Buy, McDonald's, or, like Mr. Downtown said, Rainforest Cafe. And, for the time being anyway, there are few enough of this style of Burberry flagships around (and even then enough variation between them) that it doesn't take much away from Chicago's uniqueness. But it is also not the kind of architecture a lot of us think Michigan Avenue deserves, that is, Renzo Piano, Toyo Ito, or HdM designing a specific store for Hermes, Mikimoto, and Prada. I think the only example we have on Michigan Avenue of this kind of architecture is SCB's beautiful Crate & Barrel flagship.
Still, for the vast majority of people, the design will be fresh and exciting. Ideally, it will give staid Michigan Avenue a jolt of energy and open people's minds about the kind of architecture that's possible for that area without setting a precedent for more prototype architecture.