Quote:
Originally Posted by left of center
I love Chase Tower, and I'm not here debating one is nicer than the other. Rather, I wish Chase Tower could've been built without having to lose a 500+ ft art deco tower. Not like these old buildings are exactly a dime a dozen. This city doesn't do all that well overall when it comes to preserving its past.
Source: archdaily.com
You may not like it, but calling it an ugly piece of shit may be a bit of a stretch
|
Eh, still not that into it, if anything it's mishmash of styles and size were it's greatest fault. It just doesn't have correct proportions. I don't hate the Morrison hotel, but it just wasn't better than what replaced it nor was it better than many many other buildings we lost. Buildings are going to be torn down and replaced in a big dynamic city like Chicago, we just need to concentrate on making sure it's happening to the Morrison Hotels of the world and not the Garrick Theaters, Chicago Stock Exchanges, or Masonic Temples. In the pantheon of lost Chicago architecture, Morrison Hotel barely registers.
I was literally just thinking about this the other day. It's such a shame that the Garrick was lost while the Cadillac Palace was saved. The entire Cadillac block exterior is a bland mess and the interior is garish neoclassical crap which was hardly notable among Chicago movie palaces. I would trade that entire block a dozen times over in exchange for the Garrick to still be standing. I mean yeah, would it be better if every single old building from Chicago's past was saved? Possibly, but you have to thin out the forest to allow new trees to grow. The problem is not the removal of some of the old stock, it's the removal of old stock without taking into account the relative value of such buildings.
Morrison Hotel is way down on the list of things that should have been saved. It's not even an example of one cohesive style and the two major stylistic elements aren't even great examples of their kind. The deco tower is fat and clunky when compared to true great examples of that style (i.e. Carbide and Carbon, Mather Tower, CBOT, LaSalle Wacker, Pittsfield, etc) and the neo-classical commercial block making up the base also pales in comparison to it's peers (Railroad Exchange Building, Burnham Center, People's Gas Buiding, 175 W Jackson, or basically literally anything else built during this period in the style). I mean come on, the entire Morrison Hotel was built out of the cheapest material of it's day, basic red face brick. Not terra cotta, not limestone, not granite, not glazed brick, just like 50 floors of red brick with almost no defining features.
Sorry guys, barely a good building and certainly not a great building like its replacement.
PS, I will say a few of the older bits of the building were nice, but still, they just contribute to the hodgepodge.