(photo by Lee Bey) 

I was walking out of the Daley Bicentennial Plaza parking garage on Randolph Street when I noticed Harry Weese's shiny and perfect Swissotel, visible in the gap just east of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Building.

The Swissotel is 20 years old, but it looks as fresh and vital as the new buildings popping up around it. And it reminded me, once again, of what a brilliant architect and civic presense Weese was. In addition to designing works such as the Time Life Building; the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist; the Washington Metro, Metropolitan Correctional Center and scores of iconic buildings, Weese also led the charge to save Auditorium Theater and helped create Printers Row. When he died 10 years ago, I wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times: "Weese was an architect and a preservationist, a planner and a visionary. When others seemed willing to burden the city with anonymous one-size-fits-all buildings that could have stood in any metropolis, Weese used his voice and his designs to show that Chicago is indeed a special place."

Read Weese's own words here. And, here, check out some of his work.

 (photo by Cassandra Bey)

I'll be giving a presentation, "Documenting Architecture Through Photography," before the Barrington Area Historical Society on May 17th from 2pm to 4pm. I'll show my architectural photography, share some photo techniques and tell a few good stories along the way. So come out and see me. For more about the event, read here.

Special thanks to friend, preservationist, architect historian, photographer and fellow blogger Marty Hackl for setting this up. And an additional special thanks to my 12-year-old daughter Cassandra, the photographer who took the above photo, which was used on the event flyer.

(photo by Lee Bey) 

The three presidential candidates are still pussyfooting around the energy issue. Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain want to suspend the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal fuel tax; Clinton thinks the oil companies should pay the tax, rather than consumers (She does know the oil companies will only raise the price of gas to pay for the tax? Doesn't she?)

Sen. Barack Obama considers the proposal a joke (although when he was a state senator, he backed a move  eight years ago to suspend Illinois' gas tax.) But Obama offers nothing really concrete as a counterproposal. This should be THE issue for a candidate like him, being for change and all. But his response so far as been the typical recital of "alternative energy, bio-fuel, renewable energy" buzzwords, with nothing concrete anchoring them.

If we had three candidates this soft on terrorism, this country would call for their hides. 

Let me just say this: getting rid of the federal gas tax is foolish. The tax raises about $30 billion a year, with most of it going to highway maintenance and construction but 15 percent of the amount goes to urban mass transit. So taking those dollars away only to allow people to drive more...that seems a touch loony.

Yet, what candidate will have the barrels, if you will, to tell America the truth. I wish a candidate would give an address and just spell it out...

My fellow Americans. We face the biggest threat yet to our liberty and freedom. The threat I speak of now does not come from Al Queda, or the insurgency in the Middle East, or some foreign invader yet-to-be. My friends, the danger is from within.

After the fuel crisis of the 1970s ended, this country began again treating cheap oil as our birthright. And for 35 years when we should have made our cars significantly more fuel efficient, in the name of cheap oil, we refused.

When we should have invested trillions more in mass transit and freight rail while demanding a true national passenger rail system, in the name of cheap oil, we refused.

And when we should have created disincentives to building sprawled out, car-dependent suburbs, we refused. And now, even as fuel prices cause the cost of food to rise, I remind you that much of suburbia rests on close-in land where food was once grown. We could have protected that land, but we refused.

But now..we must dig ourselves out of this hole, or risk being buried in it. To do so will take more than a speech and the promise of commitment. It will mean a radical re-thinking of where and how we live, work and play as Americans. We are not talking about a lesser America, but one in which we can still enjoy or freedoms without putting ourselves in financial bondage and ultimate ruin.

This mighty country spent the modern-day equivalent of $5 trillion over four years to fight in World War II. The enemy we now face is no less a menace than the one we faced them. We are now spending $12 billion a month to wage war in the Middle East. The enemy we face now is no less a threat than the once we face there.

At this point, the candidate would announce his or her plan. I have a few ideas, but sheesh, I gave them the speech, do I have to give them the idea, too?

Then again, the Hancock Building works pretty fine right where it is, so there. 

(photo by Lee Bey)

A few months after the 2006 loss of the Adler & Sullivan-designed Pilgrim Baptist Church, Willow Creek Chicago, an offshoot of the massive Willow Creek Church in South Barrington, began holding services in the Auditorium Theater at Congress and Michigan. I visited Sunday and it's something every fan of architecture--let alone Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler--should experience.

The theater looks great, first of all. Sullivan's stunning, organic interior and graceful sightlines coupled with Adler's engineering and accoustics create an ideal space for worship and contemplation. I sat in a box seat--kind of felt like one of those two old men on the Muppet Show--where I could listen and gawk unabated.

I found the message as powerful as the architecture. More so, even.

Neverless, the sculpture reached the end of the road over the weekend and the Chicago Sun-Times has video of it.
 

(photo by Lee Bey) 

..the tower rises. 

(photos by Lee Bey) 

The Urban Observer hopes to return next week, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, today I ran into an architect I know and we wound up discussing this blog. He teased me by saying he read the blog for the architecture, but what he really liked were the images of good-looking women that appear here.

I suspect he's not the only one.

Scroll down to the last photo to see the stone fox of the bunch.

Featuring Paul Goldberger

Moderated by Lee Bey

Chicago Public Library Harold Washington Library Center
The Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 S. State Street

Doors open at 5:15pm. Free admission. Seating is limited.

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Landmarks Ordinance and the 10th Annual Great Chicago Places and Spaces, the City of Chicago is pleased to welcome Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winner and architecture critic for The New Yorker.

Where is historic preservation going at the beginning of the twenty-first century? To mark forty years since Chicago passed its landmarks legislation, Mr. Goldberger will look at the state of architecture and how Chicago compares to other cities around the country.

Joining Mr. Goldberger will be Lee Bey, Executive Director of the Chicago Central Area Committee, writer, adviser, professor and critic specializing in architecture.

Presented by the Mayor's Office of Special Events, the Chicago Department of Planning and Development, the Chicago Public Library and the Commission on Chicago Landmarks.

And here is a map of  reported shootings in Chicago since Friday of last week. 

(photo by Lee Bey)

 The Urban Observer is taking a bit of a hiatus. I hope to be back in about two weeks. Until then, please browse the archives for more Urban Observer goodness.

(photos by Lee Bey) 

City officials are planning a new $50 million South Shore High School--a 200,000sq ft, LEED "Silver" building to be built at 75th and Jeffrey at Rosenblum Park, about a block north of the present campus pictured above.

This news made me curious about the current South Shore High School building at 76th and Constance. It looks like a low-security prison, with its slit windows and industrial beige paint job, but South Shore was envisioned as a triumph in school design--a place were educational possibilities would be limitless---when plans for the campus were unveiled in 1965. It never quite turned out that way though...

School Supt. Benjamin C. Willis--a real piece of work himself--showed off the new design at the South Shore Country Club in Sept. 1965. The school would have carpeted classrooms and closed circuit television (for teaching, not security). An outdoor theater, skating rink and an indoor auditorium would be used by students and the community. Motorized walls allowed teachers to change the size and configuration of their classrooms. A skybridge over 76th Street would connect the new building with the older South Shore High (which still exists) to the south.

The $4 million budget made it the most expensive high school in the city.

But the building had difficulty fulfilling its promise. When South Shore opened in 1968, portions of the building were still under construction and the pricetag had grown to $6 million due to  overruns and delays. Features like the skybridge never materialzed. An investigation found shoddy work, such as hot water pipes connected to drinking fountains.

Moreoever, hopes that the new school would help stabilize the then racially-changing South Shore neighborhood were unfounded.

As far as the new South Shore High School that is currently being planned, bids on the project are expected to begin by July, according to the city's Public Building Commission. The new building is slated to include a library, art and music facilities, green roofs and open spaces.

(photo by Lee Bey) 

The Prudential Building has been part of my daily routine since I started working for the Chicago Central Area Committee located in the neighboring Aon Building.

The 42-story building was the talk of the city when it was completed in 1955. It was the tallest building in Chicago; the first skyscraper built downtown since 1934. The $40 million building would be the Mid-America headquarters Prudential Insurance and the company was quite proud: It wrote its name across the top of the building in 13-foot high red neon lettering and hired Alfonso Ianelli (for $7,500) to create a 65-ton replica of the Rock of Gilbratar for the building's lower wing.

The Prudential became an instant icon of mid-century Chicago. Here is a 1955 image from a booster publication on Chicago:

At 53, the Prudential still looks good in a conservative-gray-flannel-suit sort of way, although it seems to "read" differently than before. The red Prudential lettering at the top of the building was replaced in the 1990s, as was the building's original limestone skin, which began cracking around that time.

But this isn't the first time Johnson has suffered from a gross lack of imagination. BET, the cable network he founded in 1980 and sold to Viacom for $3 billion a little while back, could have been a proud voice of black America. Instead, Johnson programmed music videos with black rumpshakers and minstrel-grade stand-up comedies. All that was missing was this.

And now, sitting on his billions, he appears all too happy to serve no other purpose in Decision '08 than to use race to poke at Obama whenever the bell sounds. And even then, Johnson can't come up with an original criticism, and instead picks up the frayed baton of Ferraro's tired claim. The rumpshakers were at least interesting...

(BTW: The animated Boondocks series did a wicked take-off on BET, but the episode was supposedly banned for reasons that appear open to dispute. See a clip here, but a warning: the scene contains foul language, use of the 'n' word and a Prada shoe as an instrument of death.)

The Trib's on-line story doesn't have a photo, but I'll track one down (or try to take one) at some point.

Urban Observer friend Jim Peters of Landmarks Illinois tells us of this great site, which features Goldberg's work, including the buildings in question.