CHICAGO | General Developments

[J_M_Tungsten]

^^^ why do you say that?

[george]

I agree, the old street wall plan is much more contextual, with varying two-story buildings. The new street wall design resembles an afterthought strip mall.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by VivaLFuego

^ I dunno... it looks worse in the rendering, but from experience in places like Vancouver (where 1-story retail street frontage, with towers set well back from the street is the norm), it could actually still work out well at street level depending on the choice of retail tenants and so on. A 2-3 story streetwall would be a mixed blessing: it would provide more visual continuity with other parts of Wells Street, but those floors would undoubtedly be filled with parking stalls anyway, and this design means no parking is visible from the street. When was the last time we could say that about a large residential project?

I dunno, I think some of those second-story areas would have been honest-to-god retail space. They don't seem have a uniform floor height, which can be faked, but if you're gonna put parking up there, it's usually not worth the effort.

[BWChicago]

And even if it was just parking on the upper floors, that parking still goes somewhere. Plus more for the added floors on the condo buildings.

[ChiTownCity]

Originally Posted by BWChicago

New renderings:
http://chicago.curbed.com/archives/2...e-released.php

The high-rises are arguably better but the streetwall is absolutely worse.

The Old design was far better than this new crap. At least with old one, if they used the right sized and textured bricks (they were going to use real bricks right?), the tower portion wouldn't really be offensive. The streetwall at the bottom had a nice variety which I would bet would of came out nice also. This new crap I'm sure would look just as cheap and crappy as the garbage like the roosevelt collections and ugly carrot orange brick crap they're calling rowhomes on the old cabrini sites. And that 1-story, as someone else mentioned, strip mall after thought they're fronting this crap with

brick always looks bad in a rendering and glass always looks nice, but that is absolutely no reason to change the design....

[ardecila]

Huh? I like Roosevelt Collection and the Cabrini infill (ParkSide). I mean, it's not groundbreaking architecture, but it's not offensive at all.

[J_M_Tungsten]

http://chicagoist.com/2011/04/07/vid...ntown_from.php

The video is excellent.

[ardecila]

Cool. I love the string-quartet version of Kanye.

[george]

Originally Posted by J_M_Tungsten

http://chicagoist.com/2011/04/07/vid...ntown_from.php

The video is excellent.

Thanks for the video, JMT. Great then & now, love it.

[harryc]

March 30


Well Grounded.

[harryc]

Jan 13


Feb 10


March 15




March 30

[SamInTheLoop]

Originally Posted by ChiTownCity

The Old design was far better than this new crap. At least with old one, if they used the right sized and textured bricks (they were going to use real bricks right?), the tower portion wouldn't really be offensive. The streetwall at the bottom had a nice variety which I would bet would of came out nice also. This new crap I'm sure would look just as cheap and crappy as the garbage like the roosevelt collections and ugly carrot orange brick crap they're calling rowhomes on the old cabrini sites. And that 1-story, as someone else mentioned, strip mall after thought they're fronting this crap with

brick always looks bad in a rendering and glass always looks nice, but that is absolutely no reason to change the design....

No, no, no, no, and no. While I agree that at street-level the old design did a better job, the tower (while still overall it appears to be mostly so-so - although as someone pointed out if some type of metal cladding is used instead of painted flat concrete it may turn out much nicer), is much better than the first design. The former design was pure suburban town center redevelopment material, like some junk you'd expect to see in Des Plaines or Wheaton or pick your suburb. The fetish for bad postmodernism and/or traditionalism (or even mediocre of either) needs to stop.......there's a connection here to the conversation over on the highrise thread regarding what's wrong with the average infill design in Chicago, and why on some levels it does appear inferior to the avg in a city like Milwaukee.........always remember - Robert AM Stern is only 'good' in the sense that he's better than Lucien Lagrange (although with that being said, I do think the new Comcast tower in Philadelphia is pretty good - although not the best curtain wall ever, for sure.....anyway, I digress big time).......otherwise he's pretty much absolutely irrelevant to our time in the state of the art of architecture, folks.......

Seriously, Chicago deserves so much better than the likes of the old design (and all of the other Lagrange garbage and the old Loewenberg River North garbage and 80% of all the small-scale stuff that's gone up in the neighborhoods).....this city's design scene used to be about boldly turning the next page, not about trying to mimic yesterday or poorly 'blend-in' with neighborhood fabrics or appease the hordes of NIMBYs with pedestrian (or worse) taste in design........

Not to pick on you in particular, Chitown - yet you do have suspect taste in architecture, and unfortunately you're far from alone in that regard in this city...

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

Robert AM Stern is only 'good' in the sense that he's better than Lucien Lagrange

Actually, I think Stern has an eye for proportion and materiality that make his buildings very harmonious and attractive, despite the fact that he chooses to work within the bounds of traditional styles.

Of course, his skyscrapers aren't terribly good (with the exceptions of Comcast and 15 CPW) so I concede that point. But his smaller-scaled buildings are excellent. And a lot of the problems with the skyscrapers are due to modern zoning codes that dictate point towers on a podium, which is the exact opposite of the massive apartment blocks that were historically the tallest form of housing.

[pip]

what is going up at Illinois and State?

[i_am_hydrogen]

^Cantina Laredo restaurant:
http://www.marinacityonline.com/news/restaurant1229.htm

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Actually, I think Stern has an eye for proportion and materiality that make his buildings very harmonious and attractive, despite the fact that he chooses to work within the bounds of traditional styles.

Of course, his skyscrapers aren't terribly good (with the exceptions of Comcast and 15 CPW) so I concede that point. But his smaller-scaled buildings are excellent. And a lot of the problems with the skyscrapers are due to modern zoning codes that dictate point towers on a podium, which is the exact opposite of the massive apartment blocks that were historically the tallest form of housing.

Agreed. And he's not just better than Lucien Lagrange-- he's in a completely different league.

[SamInTheLoop]

^ Still in the minor leagues though (perhaps AAA to Lagrange, who's always been thoroughly grounded in the single-A's). AM Stern's reputation has always far exceeded his actual work, abilities, and clearly the level and sophistication of his taste in design, and I've always been perplexed to the great degree to which that is true. Just went and re-familiarized myself a bit with his design work at 15 Central Park West, and I will admit that while it's clearly superior to a classic Lagrange, it's also just so far short of world-class architecture. So.......far. I'll never understand the praise that his followers bestow on him, and particularly that building - it just doesn't cut it...

Anyway, sorry for getting too off-topic...

[ardecila]

Well, Stern may not have any buildings in Chicago, but he DID design the bus shelters for the CTA.

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop

^ Still in the minor leagues though (perhaps AAA to Lagrange, who's always been thoroughly ground in the single-A's). AM Stern's reputation has always far exceeded his actual work and abilities, and I've always been perplexed to the great degree to which that is true. Just went and re-familiarized myself a bit with his design work at 15 Central Park West, and I will admit that it's clearly superior to a classic Lagrange, it's just so far short of world-class architecture. So far. I'll never understand the praise that his followers bestow on him, and particularly that building - it just doesn't cut it...

I thought it was very strange just 1 or 2 weeks ago that Chicago Tonight's occasional contributor Geoffrey Baer went off and did a rare documentary on a single architect, and did it on R AM Stern. At first, I thought, why are Chicago's WTTW donors paying for this guy to jet across to NYC and galavant with this architect and his projects? On one hand, it's okay that local reporters travel the country to report back to donation-paying Chicagoans (and other viewers to whom WTTW shows are syndicated) what all is out there in the world. On the other hand, beelining for one location to talk about one guy who has virtually zero nexus with Chicago seems like it might be like kind of an egregious indulgence in his own personal curiosities. One thing is for sure; R AM Stern sure seemed like he was keen throughout his career to be in the spotlight of attention, hosting his own weekly (or was it monthly) TV show, etc.

[trvlr70]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Cool. I love the string-quartet version of Kanye.

I agree but it was weird as hell.